Paulo Freire’s Work as an Organizing Strategy

• Freire’s banking method “describes an oppressive process that positions teachers as the “depositors” of knowledge into passive student ‘receptacles’”
• Instead of giving students information that they must regurgitate on command through a test, Change the Stakes argues that schools can use portfolios to measure a students growth or a performance based assessment 
• These performance based assessments are currently being used in a number of New York Public Schools

Political Education as an Organizing Strategy:

• Political education involves educating people on social justice issues so they are able to make an educated and informed decision about what is right for their family.
• They have organized and mobilized by spreading information and encouraging parents to opt their children out
• If they didn’t use political education as a strategy, many would not know the harm that standardized tests can cause their children, especially because many of the parents that this organization accommodates are minority parents, whose first language may not be English.
• Change the Stakes employs this strategy by giving parents multilingual resources and educating them on their representatives in the government
• They also organized against the nomination of Betsy DeVos: the Secretary of Education
• DeVos supports a more privatized education agenda, something that would encourage more testing
• On the website, Change the Stakes dedicated a page to giving resources against the DeVos nomination. Their goal was to show parents that their public school systems would be negatively affected by DeVos and her policies and why it was crucial that they lobby against her.
• Even though she was elected, the organization was still able to educate people about who she is and what she stands for.