I’ll be traveling home tomorrow. Today’s sessions focused on justice and fairness for all. I don’t have many notes to share, but that gives me some space to give some overall impressions.

One thing I heard many times this weekend is how people have been feeling alone, fighting the good fight, but alone. I must confess I have been feeling like this, too. So much of what everyone is doing seems to have no effect. That’s what the privatizers want us to believe. They are winning; we are losing.

So, if for nothing else, conferences like these are essential (not important as one presenter stressed. Public schools are not important; they are ESSENTIAL.) They allow us to reconnect with like-minded persons and realize more than that we are not alone, but there are more of us than of them. This conference re-energized a lot of people who have been doing the hard work, good work, and I felt re-energized standing among them.

There were more tips about cultivating relationships with local reporters to pitch stories that matter and amplify stories about education when found. Tips about cultivating relationships with legislators even if they don’t want to see a defender of public ed coming. Tips about finding existing advocacy groups to join. We don’t have to do it all by ourselves.

I attended a session about justice for the disadvantaged. It began with a session about the Willowbrook School on Staten Island, which existed to institutionalize children with disabilities, and the terrible conditions found there. The woman who presented the history shared that her mother worked there and blew the lid off with the media about the terrible conditions.

That was before the IDEA act and the movement in the 1970s to close the institutions and to provide the services disabled children need to allow them to participate as much as they are able in public education and the workforce. (Personal note: listening to someone recount how bad it was and show pictures brought tears to my eyes.)

What we have achieved since then is important: providing opportunities and dignity for everyone regardless of how they started in life.

In another session, Derek Black talked about the history of literacy and how the suppression of Black learning hurt the South, both Black and white alike. His new book is Dangerous Learning: The South’s Long War on Black Literacy. He is also the author of Schoolhouse Burning, Public Education and the Assault on Democracy.

I have not read either, but I will be soon. I hope the Jacksonville Public Library has copies available.

As the moderator said, “History does not repeat itself, but it echoes through the ages.”

The conference wrapped with a keynote address by Tim Walz, who encouraged everyone to keep doing what we do: educate the public about what is at stake. His message was that he knew he was preaching to the choir, but the choir needs to sing louder. He said we would lose a lot in the years to come, but power will shift and we can build back better our institutions.

Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, introduced him. She gave us this–there is a shift taking place. Democrat and Republican alike are opposed to the fundamental destruction of our federal government and the services it provides that we need. We must never say, “I told you so.” We must focus on building coalitions of the middle class, the working class, and the poor because people, all people, are seeing that their lives are under threat.

Together, we are many. We are not alone.