On Saturday, I attended the Education Rally sponsored by the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) in Albany, NY. Thousands of educators protested against high stakes testing in the Empire State Plaza. Many speakers, from union leaders to teachers, one principal and a very well-spoken and inspiring student named Nhikil Goyal spoke about the harmful effects of standardized testing.
View Nhikil's stirring speech in our video section.
There have been many times lately when I have written about the numerous issues facing New York State education but we all know that these are issues facing public education around the country, even in other parts of the world. Scott, an educator from Australia contacted me yesterday saying, "We look to be changing government this year to a group who will pursue exactly the kind of "reform" you are fighting right now so it's really important to see how things transpire, the strategies and dialogs which have impact."
I was able to spend some quality time with staff from my district but most of my time was spent with principals from downstate. One was from the Hudson Valley but most were from Long Island.
Long Island has a very vocal group of principals that I find very inspiring. Two of them, Carol Burris and Sean Feeney created the N.Y. Principal letter which has been signed by thousands of educators. As we looked around we saw some school leaders spending time with their staff, but not enough leaders showed up.
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