GUILDERLAND — The sounds of whistles and rattles were muffled by the roar of rush-hour traffic on Route 20 at Johnston Road on Friday. But above the din, a woman’s voice on a bullhorn could be heard: “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Public schools, the way to go!”

About 50 people had gathered under the evening sun on a day Andy Pallotta, executive vice president of the New York State United Teachers, had declared a day of advocacy to “reclaim the joy of teaching.”

At the eastern end of the roadside contingent, two NYSUT employees held a professionally printed black banner with an unflattering picture of Governor Andrew Cuomo. “What are you afraid of?” the banner asked, “Come to our schools.”

One of the men, Randy Gunther, helped organize the rally. He said he was not disappointed in the turnout. “For them to come out after a long week of getting ready for high-stakes testing is great,” he said. He explained the purpose of the rally as “raising public awareness that public schools are missing out.”

“The legislative cycle isn’t over,” said Gunther. “They could still fix problems.”

Asked what problems were at the top of his list for fixing, Gunther named two: “Decouple the budget from the teacher evaluation process” and “use tests for student diagnostics not for evaluating teachers.”

NYSUT, a 600,000-member unit, had originally agreed to testing for teacher evaluation in order for the state to receive federal Race to the Top funds. An opt-out movement has been gathering force as some parents are holding their children out of the state-required tests. Locally, from 18 to 44 percent of third- through eighth-grade students opted out of math and English tests.

State education agencies, according to federal regulations, are supposed to impose sanctions, including withholding funds, on districts that don’t have enough students taking the tests but New York’s Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch has said it would be wrong to punish children for adults’ disagreements.

Last Thursday, the National Assessment of Educational Progress released a report ranking New York State first as a “truth teller,” that is, in having tests that accurately reflect student progress.

Tisch released a statement calling the NAEP the “gold standard for measuring student achievement” and said, “In 2010, the Board of Regents set out to align New York’s assessments with NAEP, because our students deserve the best we can give them, and our schools need accurate information to help our students meet that gold standard....The report makes it clear:  New York State’s assessments tell teachers, parents, and the public where our students are, and where they need to be.”

Gunther said he was unaware of the report.

At the Western end of the line, two Guilderland teachers held a banner they had made on white cloth. “Stand Up for Public Schools,” it declared in large, colorful letters.

Kim Dunham, a first-grade teacher in Guilderland held one end of the banner. She’s in her ninth year of teaching and came out for the rally, she said, because “we have to raise awareness for public schools....We’ve been under continued assault for years.”

Amy Nowak held the other end of the banner. She’s in her sixth year at Altamont Elementary School. “It’s become a real fight,” she said. “It’s not the public as much as the politicians.”

In between those two banners were people holding signs for all manner of reasons. A white-haired man held a handmade sign that urged people to stop bullying teachers. A middle-aged man held a printed NYSUT poster that said, “Let Us Reclaim The Dignity We As Workers Deserve” with several points listed, including, “fight for a living wage” and “defending public education.”

Jim Larson, from NYSUT, walked the line handing out blue whistles. Rattles were also distributed, some with a picture of Cuomo’s face under a red circle and slash. Five-year-old Jolie Benjamin, perched on the shoulders of her father, Bret, who works at the State University of New York, enjoyed both the whistle and the rattle. She held one in each hand as her blonde hair rippled in the breeze.

Twelve-year-old Olive Niccoli had come all the way from Canajoharie with her mother, Sara.  She held a sign she’d made herself, saying, “Take Testing $ to give to....” and had drawn a paintbrush and palette, a football, a school bus, and some musical notes.

“We have a small rural school district suffering from underfunding. Too much money is being spent for tests,” said Sara Niccoli. Asked how she felt about tests, Olive said, “I hate them.” She went on, echoing her mother’s views, “I think they suck up all the money that could go to art and field trips and more music.”

Mallory Trainor, a ninth-grader at Guilderland High School, was also there with her mother, Jessica Mann. Mallory had a specific complaint about the Common Core test she had to take. “I have a 504 Plan for ADHD,” she said, meaning, because of her being diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, she is supposed to be offered certain accommodations to level the field.

She is supposed to take tests in a quiet room, secluded from classmates, Mallory explained. She did not do so but, rather, stayed in the room with her classmates for the test.

Asked how she managed, Mallory responded, “I did fine...I just skipped the ones I didn’t know.”

Her mother said that students in the third through eighth grades with certain accommodations weren’t allowed to use them. Mallory went on to say she was concerned how students with severe problems managed. “I worry about the people who couldn’t handle it,” she said.

“It’s not an isolated incident,” said her mother. “When students have an IEP,” she said of an individualized education program, the school and the parents come to an agreement on how the students are to be taught and tested. “It violates their civil rights,” she said of forcing a student to take a test without the agreed-upon accommodations. She said of Mallory, “Her doctor says what’s appropriate.”

Mallory and her mother held identical signs, encouraging people to vote in the upcoming school budget elections. The NYSUT signs said, “Respect Public Education. It works. Vote May 19.”

Behind the line of protesters that stood along the curb, whistling and waving as drivers honked their horns in support, was 82-year-old Nancy Kim. She stood quietly by herself, holding one of the NYSUT rattles with Cuomo’s crossed-out face.

Kim had retired at age 60 from her telephone company job but came back to work, in the Guilderland Elementary School cafeteria, 14 years ago. She came out to support the teachers, she said. “I don’t think the teachers are treated right,” she said. “The kids got no respect.”

She also said, “The kids shouldn’t be tested to evaluate teachers. That should be up to the principal of the school.”

As she shook her rattle, Kim expressed her views on Cuomo, “Every governor is rich, and the poor don’t count much.”