FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - NYSAPE Urges Legislators to Cast No Vote for Incumbents at Board of Regents Election if Nominated

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  February 25, 2014

More information contact:

Eric Mihelbergel (716) 553-1123; nys.allies@gmail.com

Lisa Rudley (917) 414-9190; 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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Videos of Interviews of candidates for the Board of Regents

Next month, four members of the board of Regents will finish their five year terms and are applying
to be re-appointed.  The Board of Regents appoint the Chancellor and are in charge of setting education policy for the state.  All four current members who are applying to be re-appointed, Christine Cea, Wayne Norwood, James Jackson and James Cottrell, have strongly supported Commissioner King and his controversial implementation of the Common Core standards and curriculum, high stakes testing, and data-sharing with inBloom.

NY State Allies for Public Education is endorsing an alternative slate of candidates, whose positions more closely reflect the widespread discontent among parents and educators with these policies.

Below are some videos that contrast the interviews of two of the new candidates applying for these seats with those currently holding those seats. These interviews are conducted primarily by the chair of the Education committee, Assemblymember Cathy Nolan and the chair of the Higher Education committee, Assemblymember Deborah Glick, but other legislators also ask questions.  More videos are collected here.  The vote of the Legislature on these appointments is expected to take place on March 11.  Parents should contact their legislators to let them know how they would like them to vote.

First, see the interview of Michael Reilly, a NYC parent leader and Community Education Council  member, who is applying for the Staten Island seat.  If selected, Mike would be the only Regents currently with a child in the public schools.




Contrast Reilly's positions with those of Christine Cea, a researcher at the New York State Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities who holds the Staten Island seat and is applying to be re-appointed.  She appears to have a very different point of view on the Common Core and testing, especially as regards students with disabilities.  Here is a quote from her interview, when asked if there is a disparity between the Common Core and the IEPs, or individualized education programs mandated for students with special needs:

“I think that the IEP and the standards are the same because the IEP has standards on it already. The standards that we are proposing are a little different but they can be adapted because the IEP is individualized."

Also please watch the interview of Milady Baez, a former teacher and Queens local superintendent, who is applying for one of the at-large seats.  She expresses a more critical perspective on the Common Core as well as the education agenda pursued previously by the non-educators in the Bloomberg administration.




Baez's positions on equity and education contrast with those of Wayne Norwood, who currently sits in one of the at-large seats, chaired the Regents task force on the Common Core, and is a strong proponent of the current NY State Education policies.  Norwood is the Director of Community Engagement for the Finger Lakes Health Systems Agency, and like Cea, is applying for another five-year term.

letter from AM Glick to Chancellor Walcott re school overcrowding

Why couldn't she run the DOE?  We can always dream....

Dear Chancellor Walcott,

The Department of Education has indicated in numerous meetings that a rezoning of District 2 will occur in the near future. Before any conversations on such a topic can begin, I would like to formally express my underlying concern that any type of rezoning will not be sufficient to alleviate the need for more school seats in District 2.  Furthermore, I am concerned that the pedagogical leanings of the Department of Education, which de-emphasize the importance of teacher student ratios, will impact any proposed rezonings in a way that parents in my community find unacceptable.  Inadequate capacity, more than anything else, is the issue facing schools in District 2. If a dinner party is held for twenty-nine people but there are only twenty available chairs, switching the seating arrangement does not solve the problem.

My office has long been a proponent for smaller class sizes for New York City Public Schools, yet during the tenure of Mayoral Control over City schools class sizes have continued to grow despite concerns from parents, educators, and school administrators. This concern is not without merit, as the New York Times recently highlighted in “For San Diego Schools, a Fear That Larger Classes will Hinder Learning,” which I have included with this letter. This article illustrates the points that my office, and other concerned parties have been asserting for years: smaller class sizes work best for younger students, increases student participation and engagement, allows for individualized attention between students and instructors, and indicates a decrease in disciplinary problems.

While I may disagree with some of the Department of Education’s methods I truly believe our goal is the same: to allow the students of New York City Public Schools to receive a world class education which will allow them to pursue careers and higher education. This goal cannot be met without decreasing class sizes, and certainly will not be reached by re-arranging more students into schools that cannot accommodate the number of students already attending. We cannot cut costs at the expense of New York City Public School Children’s access to a quality education. I would like to further discuss alternative options to re-zoning as well as necessary efforts to decrease class sizes with you. Please feel free to contact myself or my Chief of Staff Matthew Borden at 212-674-5153, to arrange a meeting.

Deborah J. Glick, New York State Assembly Member, 66^th District

NYC Kids PAC Endorses Bill Thompson

Over 200 public school parents and educators from all over the city braved icy rain on Sunday to cheer as NYC Kids PAC endorsed Bill Thompson for mayor. Kids PAC president Ann Kjellberg, Assemblymember Deborah Glick, and parent leaders Monica Major from the Bronx and Rich Wisniewski from Staten Island spoke about the real record of this administration—flat national test scores, overcrowded classrooms, and dictatorial policies that don't work—and our support for Thompson's policies and values. Alev Dervich, a teacher from PS 15 in Red Hook spoke about the administration's divisive policy of forcing privileged charter schools into neighborhood schools, and Luis Reyes spoke of their failure to improve outcomes for ELL and Special Ed students.

NYC Kids PAC was proud to have this opportunity to join hands with parents from the across the city and demand real improvements for our schools. Eight years of destructive, dictatorial educational policies are enough!

Visit www.nyckidspac.org to read our endorsement and Thompson's proposals for education, to join NYC Kids PAC, and to request materials to distribute in your neighborhood. There are only two weeks remaining in this election and parents must be heard!

NYC Kids PAC is a grassroots organization of parents working together to support elected officials who support our schools, with particular attention to their actual legislative and policy record in office. We are proud to endorse Bill Thompson for mayor and to call on NYC parents to vote Bloomberg out on the basis of his dismal record while reigning over our schools: his disdain for public school parents and his indifference to the issues that concern us the most.

See our press release about yesterday's event and this Daily News article.

Parents speak out against Mayoral control at Cooper Union's Great Hall

Check out the Villager, about Assemblymember Deborah Glick’s forum on Mayoral control at the Great Hall in Cooper Union last week. I was a member of the panel, and it was an honor and a privilege to be able to speak at the same venue where Abraham Lincoln and so many other historic figures once appeared.

As the reporter describes, one parent after another in the audience spoke out against the abuses in the current system of school governance:

“Of the 70 audience members, mainly parents, at the Great Hall, none spoke in favor of mayoral control. Of the three panelists, one said he actually favored the idea — though not under Mayor Bloomberg, who he charged is running things terribly.”

New School Q&A

Q: What has an 177,000 fully air-conditioned square feet of space, an auditorium, large rooms, separate rest rooms, and multiple elevator banks; is fully ADA compliant; sits right in the middle of the city’s most overcrowded school district, with the fastest growing population of students; has nonresidential zoning; and is virtually empty?

A: Did you think it might be a future public school? No! According to the State of New York, it is a great thing to tear down to make room for more luxury condos!

75 Morton Street is a building owned by the State of New York, the former NYC regional offices of the NYS Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities. In December Assemblymember Deborah Glick noted that it was slated for sale, and put in a call to the Empire State Development Corporation requesting that it be considered as a site for a school. Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott told Assemblymember Glick in a meeting shortly after an RFP was posted for the site at the beginning of July that DOE was trying to negotiate with the ESDC to withdraw it and make the property available to the city for a school. So far there's no sign that ESDC is paying any attention.

The state is swiping this piece of desperately needed real estate out from under the city for what can only be seen as a negligible share of its total budget. The opportunity costs involved with the construction of a new school and the acquisition of a comparably large parcel elsewhere in D2 would seem to obliterate the advantage of an outright sale, but the right hand does not seem to know what the left hand is doing. Meanwhile, parents are pushing hard for middle school space at 75 Morton. D2 middle schools nearly all have class sizes in the 30s and are squashed into the top floors (no wheelchairs up there!) of overcrowded elementary schools.

Parents and local elected officials are planning to rally in support of D2 middle school space at 75 Morton—and to remind the state of our space needs, and the city of our need for middle schools. They hope that the sight of hundreds of parents and children, hungry for school space, in front of a school-ready building, will make it a little harder to tear it down. RALLY: 75 Morton Street, between Greenwich and Washington, August 6, 5:30

Report from C4E hearings; and how you can help!

Last night’s Contract for Excellence hearings at Fashion Industries HS were well-attended: Assembly members Deborah Glick and Linda Rosenthal were especially strong on the lack of transparency and accountability on the part of the DOE re class size. Council members Gail Brewer, Eric Gioia and Robert Jackson focused mostly on the city’s proposed budget cuts.

Parent delegations from PS 116, PS 41, and PS 59 spoke about overcrowding and growing class sizes at their schools, and Philippa Schuyler MS parents protested the fact that the DOE is forcing a charter school into their building, making it difficult for them to reduce class size below 32.

Coalition for Educational Justice members were there in force, and exited chanting midway through the evening. Le Roy Barr of the UFT inveighed against the cuts; Patrick Sullivan, the Manhattan rep on the PEP testified against the city’s proposal, as did Susan Crawford of the Right to Read project, parents from La Guardia HS, PS 6, PS 290, Wagner and Lab, and several other schools whose names I didn’t catch.

Several commented on how the way DOE changed the dates several times had discouraged more parents from participating.

Here are links to our testimony, that of Council member Rosie Mendez, and CFE. If you’d like yours posted as well, email them to classsizematters@gmail.com

Note: You can send comments through June 27 to DOE : contractsforexcellence@schools.nyc.gov

Be sure to send copies to Commissioner Mills and Deputy Commissioner Duncan-Poitier at richard.mills@mail.nysed.gov and p16education@mail.nysed.gov. Thanks!