NYC Public School Parents

Dear Parents and Educators,

NYC Kids PAC enthusiastically endorses the following candidates running for the State Legislature in the Democratic primary on September 13, 2018:

Jessica Ramos (Senate D13);
Julia Salazar (Senate D18)
Zellnor Myrie (Senate D20)
Robert Jackson (Senate D31)
Catalina Cruz (Assembly D39)

(If you don’t know which Senate or Assembly district you live in, click on the links above.)

We support these candidates on the basis of their progressive records and their excellent responses on the NYC Kids PAC education survey. (You can see their responses here [link], along with the surveys of their opponents if they returned them.)

Three of the candidates for Senate, Jessica, Zellnor and Robert, are also challenging sitting legislators who had previously joined the IDC, the Independent Democratic Caucus. Until recently, the IDC worked with GOP members to block critical education fun

ding and support the further privatization of our public schools.

Four of our five endorsees , although relatively new to electoral politics, bring impressive resumes, energy and commitment to their campaigns.

One of them is a seasoned veteran,Robert Jackson, who has extensive experience as the chair of the NYC Council Education Committee and a twenty-five year history of education advocacy as a school board president and lead plaintiff in the CFE lawsuit to obtain fair funding for NYC schools.

NYC Kids PAC decided not to endorse in the primary for governor. We are no fans of Gov. Cuomo, who has shirked his responsibility to fairly fund NYC schools and has shown undue preferences for privately-run charter schools that often violate student rights and divert even more funding and space from our public schools. While Cynthia Nixon’s survey responses [LINK] were convincing on the need to increase education funding, keep the cap on charter schools, and reduce the emphasis on standardized tests, on several other important issues, including mayoral control, parent and CEC empowerment, class size and the Common Core standards, her responses were disappointing.

We urge all NYC parents and concerned citizens to vote for the candidates below; even more importantly, to contribute to and/or volunteer for their campaigns.