Time for some good music! Lily sings Solidarity Forever in honor of the Wisconsin legislators who stood up for working people against attacks on collective bargaining and union rights.
Events
The Good Fight
It was a powerful thing on the Ellipse of the Mall with the White House in the background and the Capitol down the road.
It was powerful for the very fact that it started as the idea who have for so many years called for a return to sanity – the radically sane idea of using test scores to measure no more than what they were designed to measure.
So many of us over the years have called for a rejection of the insanity of making stuff up and pretending that some standardized test is all you need to tell the worth of a child, her teacher or an entire school system.
When test scores go up, we do not applaud. When test scores go down, we do not gnash our teeth and look for villains.
and we know that neither celebrations nor Salem witch trials are called for based on a single standardized test which measures so very little of what a child will need to know to succeed in today’s world (or yesterday’s world or even tomorrow’s world.)
This is What Democracy Looks Like
I’m at the annual . We are a strange but noble people. We are passionate. We wear T-shirts and buttons that say funny things. We are generous. We are sensitive and kind and a little crazy. We are very smart. We care about someone else’s child.
These teachers and support professionals and college professors and librarians and principals and counselors and school nurses and anyone and everyone who touches the life of a student from preschool to graduate school have been duly elected and certified to represent the NEA members back home who sent them here to be their voice.
These teachers and support professionals and college professors and librarians and principals and counselors and school nurses and anyone and everyone who touches the life of a student from preschool to graduate school have been duly elected and certified to represent the NEA members back home who sent them here to be their voice.
We sit in a huge cavernous hall with 40 microphones and 22 big screen monitors and positions and actions of the NEA focused around a mission to prepare each and every blessed student to succeed in an increasingly diverse and interconnected world - A world that needs them all to be more than accomplished test-takers.
It needs them to be thinkers and doers; engaged in our civil and cultural society; connected to others in ways we could not have imagined possible when I began teaching 4th graders thirty-one years ago.
Behind the Scenes @ Netroots Nation
Another year of Netroots Nation! Lily joined thousands of bloggers, activists and organizers interested in building a more inclusive, diverse and progressive democracy. Supporting a quality public education is key to a strong middle class and a more equal and just nation. Here are some of the behind the scenes moments of a gathering to remember.
Were you at Netroots Nation? Share your impressions with us!
Lily Eskelsen with author and blogger (PunditMom) Joanne Bamberger
Lily on the Engaging Progressives in the Fight for Public Education panel
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