The Network for Public Education was founded in 2013 by Diane Ravitch and Anthony Cody with a mission "to preserve, promote, improve and strengthen public schools for both current and future generations of students." It's very much a network, connecting folks who are active on the national, regional, state, and local level to work in support of public education in this country.
As part of that networking, NPE holds national conferences that feature a wide variety of panels and speakers and a wealth of information about what's going on in the world of public education.
This work can be isolating. I'm a now-retired teacher living in a small town in Northwest Pennsylvania, and in my normal life I would meet pretty much none of the folks I read or who read me. The presentations and panels are great, inspiring, and energizing, but it's meeting folks face to face that really makes the weekend.
The power of human connection is important, and we don't have many opportunities to build it. This conference is one of them. You can see here just some of the people who will be there, some of the organizations being represented. And beyond those folks you will find rooms full of people who all care about public education.
I will be there, sitting on a panel and mingling and chatting with a host of people doing the work, and I will come home from this conference once again energized and refreshed. This year the gathering is in Columbus, Ohio on the first weekend of April, and I have been registered for, like, nine months, because I look forward to this. And if you've never done a conference kind of thing, this is an easy one. Regsiter, show up, see some panels, hear some speakers, meet a whole lot of cool people, talk about some really important stuff.
You can register at this website. I hope to see you there.
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