Where to make a change?

A teacher friend emailed me last night after reading my blog and asked whether it was a better idea to stay in the "bad" school and try to make changes or to go to a school where everyone feels the same way I do. I told her that in all honesty, I had debated tht for a long time last year, and finally decided that there are some places where you can't really make changes.

I thought about it some more this morning and think there is more to it than that. My new school definitely has more like minded people, although perhaps not to the extreme that I am, but I think that having a whole school where everyone is working in a more meaningful way for kids, where everything is not focused on the test, is important in and of itself--to be part of an organization that's all working together to achieve that is necessary too. And frankly, schools like this need all the help they can get, because they are the minority and they need support. If I can help this school stay alive (and that could be in question in the coming years) than I think that's a worthy cause as it fights to educate our students.