Veteran political analyst Jason Stanford attended the Network for Public Education conference in Austin, and he sensed the beginning of a movement against high-stakes testing and the corporate takeover of public education.

He writes:

“In the state where high-stakes testing began, a few hundred teachers, academics, and activists came together last weekend to hasten what one leader called an “Education Spring.” The Network for Public Education gathered in Austin to plan the resistance to the status quo of high-stakes testing and an encroaching corporate privatization movement. This first-of-its-kind convention might finally provide an effective opposition to the corporate reform movement that wants to run education like a business.

“With groups like this one and so many others, all of which are active in so many ways, in so many parts of the country, we are standing on the threshold of the Education Spring,” said John Kuhn, a Texas superintendent known for his fiery speeches. “We’re here to shake up the educational world, and our movement is only growing. This is our spring.”