2006
The Downer 5
Elizabeth Jaeger, Lina Prairie, Thomas Prather, Eduardo Martinez and Michael McDonald, dubbed the Downer 5 for the Elementary School in Northern California where they taught together. After years of attempting to negotiate modifications to curriculum which was inappropriate for their students, they ultimately wrote a letter to their colleagues offering further assistance and stating that they would no longer comply with several instructional mandates. Within months, all were involuntarily transferred – two of them in mid-year. Quoting Susan Ohanian, “These teachers are taking a strong stand to assert their professionalism, which means doing what’s right for kids.”

2005
Ann Zimmerman is from Nashville, Tenn. She is a now-retired teacher who retired rather than teach the Language! middle school reading program. Herprincipal required that she use the program even though she found it to be inappropriate for high school students. She believed it to be insulting to her students and she knew that the "linguistic principles" on which it was based were just plain wrong.

2004
Salvador Gabaldon was a barrio kid from East Los Angeles. Due to many fortuitous events he was able to attend college and become an English teacher. Sal and his family moved to Tucson in 1981 where he earned a Master’s Degree from LRC in 1998. Sal has worked at Pueblo and Rincon High Schools and has been a leader in the Tucson Association for Bilingual Education. He is a prolific writer of letters and editorials to the local newspapers in opposition to Proposition 203 and has assisted parents and teachers to organize a legal strategy to defend parental rights concerning children’s language development and use.

2003
Susan Ohanian a longtime classroom teacher maintains a website at www.susanohanian.org which is required reading for staying current on the resistance movement to government-mandated standards and testing. Susan is author or co-author of 23 books, including One Size Fits Few and What Happened to Recess and Why are our Children Struggling in Kindergarten? Susan is a Senior Fellow at the Vermont Society for the Study of Education and a Fellow at the Education Policy Research Unit, Arizona State University. She is contributing editor at Vermont Commons: Voices of Independence and writes a monthly column in Substance, the education newspaper of the resistance. She was awarded the NCTE “George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language” in 2003 and the John Dewey Award for Extraordinary Contributions to the Education of Young People in America.

2002
Joanne Yatvin was superintendent of a school district in Oregon when she was chosen to sit on the National Reading Panel. She was the only panel member with the integrity and courage to write a Minority report which alerted the public to the flaws in the Report. Joanne suffered both professional and financial loss due to her participation and visibility as a member of the Panel. Besides the Minority Report, Joanne has authored over 60 articles, 5 book chapters, and 3 books for teachers. She has also developed exemplary curricula and has held offices in national, state and local organizations. In 1985 Joanne was selected as Wisconsin's Elementary Principal of the Year, and in 1988 she received the Lois Gadd Nemec Outstanding Alumni Award from the University of Wisconsin School of Education.

2001
Kathy Mason received the first "In Defense of Good Teaching" award because she "stood up" in the face of incredible pressure to submit to district mandates. Her principal ordered her to use a scripted reading program and she refused. She was banished from her classroom to a dark warehouse to inventory books and a substitute teacher took over her classroom. Children and parents complained, but the district could not see their way to reinstate her. She left the district, but has kept hope alive by reading and analyzing her student’s' lifebooks, her personal lifebooks, reading children’s literature, and listening to tapes of poets. These sources of inspiration got her through the awful days in the warehouse and continue to sustain her as she continues her life's work.