FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 25, 2014
More information contact:
Eric Mihelbergel (716) 553-1123; nys.allies@gmail.com
NYS Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE) www.nysape.org
NYSAPE Urges Legislators to Cast No Vote for Incumbents at Board of Regents Election if Nominated
New
York State Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE), a coalition of 45
organizations from around the state, is urging New Yorkers to contact
their Legislators to attend the joint Legislative session on Tuesday, March 11
during which four Regent board members will be selected. Although the
four Regent incumbents, Cea, Cottrell, Jackson, and Norwood have applied
to retain their seats, parents, educators, and community members are
asking their Legislators to vote “No” to any incumbent who is
re-nominated. NYSAPE will be keeping score of how each Legislator votes
at www.nysape.org
Parents
across New York State have expressed outrage at the Board of Regents’
failure to respond to the concerns of both parents and educators. The
incumbent Regent candidates have failed to take action to amend current
policies or speak out against them. The recent recommendations of the
Regents’ Taskforce Report did little to address the critical problems
associated with the Common Core standards, the flawed modules, high
stakes testing, or student data sharing. According to South Side High
School principal Carol Burris, “The so-called delay in full
implementation of high school graduation Common Core standards was a
political ploy. First, the Common Core Regents exams were not
delayed—students will begin taking them this spring. Second, the new
“passing scores” had never been established—and with good reason. If
those two scores (75 on the English Regents and 80 on a Math Regents)
were put in place, our graduation rate would plummet to 35%.”
Last
week, the State Education Department also announced that they plan to
upload sensitive, personal student data to inBloom, starting in July.
New York is the only state of the nine original inBloom participants not
to pull out completely or put their data sharing plans on indefinite
hold.
In
recent weeks, Legislators had the opportunity to interview both new
applicants and the incumbent candidates for the four open positions on
the Board of Regents. “It is inconceivable to think that Legislators
would vote for an incumbent simply out of deference to his or her
previous service. I watched the interviews, I read the Regents Taskforce
Report. I know that the Regents Cea, Cottrell, Jackson, and Norwood are
not the best candidates for the job and do not deserve to be
re-appointed. The future of public education in this state hangs in the
balance and this vote will help influence how thousands of parents in
turn cast their votes come November,” said Bianca Tanis, parent and
co-founding member of NYSAPE.
"I
would urge our Legislators to show up and vote,” said Eric Mihelbergel,
Ken-Ton public school parent and founding member of NYSAPE. “They are
more than aware of parent concerns and as elected officials, I am
hopeful that members of the Senate and Assembly will carry out the
wishes of their constituents to use this election as an opportunity to
exert their influence to bring change to current policies and safeguard
our children’s education.”
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