Free More Than a Score by Jesse Hagopian Page A

structure that allowed the incredible talents and energies of the teachers who gravitated to us to find an outlet. This took two forms: the creation of state BAT organizations that could mount actions based on local conditions, which varied greatly from state to state and region to region, and the creation of special-interest groups—BATS in Higher Education, BATS in Special Ed, BATS Under Fire, Author BATS—which reflected the full array of issues teachers were passionate about and challenges they face. This allowed BATS to simultaneously have a strong, clear, national identity while giving members the opportunity to launch actions and discussions with smaller groups of people who shared their concerns. There is no other education activist group in the nation that has a structure like this—a national organization with over a hundred functioning subgroups working within it. In that respect, BATS has more in common with the ACLU and the NAACP than with Dump Duncan, Network for Public Education, or Parents Across America, although Save Our Schools has some similar features.
    None of this could work without a passionate investment of energy by thousands of teachers around the nation who participate in the state BAT groups and BAT special-interest groups. Who are these teachers? Although I have not made a formal survey I would say the following: the vast majority are veteran teachers, with twenty or more years of experience, who are enraged at how they are being demonized, marginalized, and disrespected by those shaping current education policy. These are confident, talented people whose wisdom is being squandered and whose professional standing is being undermined. By giving these teachers—90 percent of whom are women—an organizational outlet, BATS has created a movement that education policy makers around the nation have learned to reckon with, and in some cases to fear.
    But when all is said and done, more than all the discussion and support groups, all the memes and videos, all the BAT T-shirts and bumper stickers, it is the actions the group has taken, and its political statements, that have put BATS on the map. Ever since mid-July, under the guidance of general manager Marla Kilfoyle, BATS posts actions for the week on its national page. These range from Twitter swarms on Bill Gates, Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan, the Koch brothers, and ALEC, demanding they stop demonizing teachers and promoting school privatization to organizing support for protests against school closings in Chicago, Philadelphia, Newark, and Camden; to bombarding elected officials around the nation with calls, emails, and tweets demanding they stop seizing teacher pensions, undermining teacher tenure, decertifying teachers unions, giving preference to charter schools and Teach for America, and rating teachers on the basis of student test scores. Because of such coordinated actions, teachers around the country, leaders of teachers unions, and education activists like Diane Ravitch now call on BATS for help whenever teachers and public education are under attack.
    BATS has also produced important position papers on key issues in education policy—ranging from the Common Core State Standards to Teach for America—and members have testified at numerous hearings and policy forums sponsored by school boards, legislatures, and state education departments around the United States. Our next big steps will be organizing a teachers March on Washington (July 28, 2014) and running candidates for state, local, and union offices. Three of our BATS are running as write-in candidates for governor—in Florida, New York, and Connecticut—and scores more are running for school boards, city councils, state legislatures, and leadership positions in their teachers unions.
    The explosion of energy this organization has triggered is unlike anything I have experienced in years of participating in social justice movements since the 1960s. The