The media, business, and even the Obama administration have been pretty nasty to teachers lately. This week I saw a group of retired teachers from Webster, New York, get together to honor my Mom (on the right in photo), who was a music teacher at the school for almost 20 years, and was in town for a visit.

The true warmth, friendship, and trust in this group was a joy to behold. Sadly, many of them expressed to me that today's teachers don't have as much opportunity to teach in the very collaborative way they were able to teach, because of current education policies from ESEA on down.

Take a minute today to hug or otherwise thank a teacher. We need to unite and fight the anti-teacher, anti-public school forces that are trying to destroy public education.