City Hall rally: Our Schools, our Voice and the Governor's Missed Opportunity Agenda

On Sunday at City Hall Park a rally was held hosted by Public Advocate Letitia James about the need to fight for fair funding for our schools and against the Governor's damaging education proposals. Tish was terrific as usual about the need to support and protect our schools and listen to parents and teachers but that instead, the Governor has put forward a "Missed Opportunity Agenda." .  

Other electeds and advocates who spoke eloquently included AM David Weprin and Joanne Simon, former Councilmember and lead plaintiff  in the CFE education funding lawsuit Robert Jackson, and Zakiyah Ansari of AQE.  Here is a news story; below is my speech: 

On Thursday there were a beautiful series of rallies at more than 100 schools throughout NYC in all the five boroughs.  Parents, students, and teachers held hands and surrounded their schools, in a peaceful, and even joyful symbolic action to protect their schools.  They were out there to show they are united in spirit and determined to defend against the Governor’s destructive proposals to defund, disrupt, dismantle and privatize our public school system.  Parents do love their public schools; they just want them properly supported and funded, with smaller classes and a well-rounded education, full of arts, music and science and all the things that children need to flourish.

And what was the Governor’s response?  According to his spokesperson, he called our peaceful protests “a tantrum of special interests”.  Then he said, “Frankly, the louder special interests scream — and today they were screaming at the top of their lungs — the more we know we’re right.”

Well, Governor, parents are NOT a special interest – at least in the way you meant it.  Parents have one special interest – their children, and you need to recognize that parents in NYC are fed up with the agenda of test prep, budget cuts, and punitive sanctions on our schools and teachers that we had for 12 years under Michael Bloomberg – and that failed utterly to improve our schools.  Instead we demand that you give us the support that they need – and that the state’s highest courts said was your constitutional obligation. 

I also want to warn you, the last time a state leader called parents a special interest was John King – and he was run out of the state on a rail for his arrogance and refusal to listen to our concerns.

Now the Governor has put forward many outrageous proposals as part of his budget but I want to focus on just one - his proposal to raise the charter cap– which could send 250 more charters to NYC.  This could truly be disastrous for our schools and drain even more resources and space from our already underfunded and overcrowded public schools.

Why?  Because last year in the budget, he included a clause in the law that obligates the city to provide space to new charters within our already overcrowded school buildings going forward – or pay for their rent in private spaces. 

There are severely overcrowded communities in NYC that have waited a generation to see a school built in their neighborhoods – and not to have to bus their Kindergarten children miles away.  But from now on, every new charter school can get free space on demand – at the taxpayer’s expense. 

NYC is the only district in the state, indeed the only district in the country that is required to pay for facilities for charters – whether we want them or not.  

If the cap is lifted, and 250 more charters are sent to NYC, as the Governor has proposed, it could cost taxpayers more than $800M a year in charter rent alone – money that instead should go to building more neighborhood public schools – that are not overcrowded and can offer small classes, which is the #1 choice of NYC parents.

So we ask you to fight the Governor’s destructive proposals by calling his office and your legislators as well as Speaker Heastie with four simple demands:

  1- give us the funding our schools deserve  2- Say NO to tying test scores to teacher evaluation; 3- No to giving tax credits to millions for private school tuition; and  4- NO to raising the cap on charter schools.  

We cannot allow our precious resources to be siphoned off to allow Cuomo and his billionaire hedgefund cronies  to attain their goal of privatizing our public schools.

Please join us to protect our schools on Thursday March 12!

 

Dear parents:  Our public schools are under attack. We ask that you join with us in a citywide event on Thursday, March 12, either before or after school, and ask fellow parents, students, teachers and other school staff, to form a ring around your building to symbolically protect your school. Outside NYC, these symbolic actions are taking place on other dates, including March 26. 

These events are being co-sponsored by the Class Size Matters, NYS Allies for Public Education, the Alliance for Quality Education and the UFT. Here is an editable version of this letter you use to send to your school community; and an editable flyer you can adapt for your school. 

Why do we ask you to do this?

After cutting school funding sharply in recent years, Governor Cuomo has threatened to hold any increase in state aid hostage to an arsenal of damaging education proposals, which could severely threaten the quality and local autonomy of NYC public schools. Though he still owes NYC schools over $2 billion from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity decision, and statewide he owes schools over $5 billion, he now says he won’t increase funding unless the Legislature approves tuition tax credits to private schools, similar to vouchers, raising the cap on charter schools by one hundred and eliminating any regional restrictions, which could mean up to 250 more charter schools targeted to NYC, with each one guaranteed free facilities at the city expense. These proposals would divert essential funds and space from our public schools. At the same time, he has also proposed that struggling schools be taken over by the state and/or turned over to private hands.

In addition, the Governor is insisting on a statewide teacher evaluation system that takes nearly all authority out of district and principal hands, basing 50% of a teacher’s ratings on student test scores on the highly fallible state exams, with only 15% based on the principal’s assessment, and the other 35% on independent evaluators, pre-selected by the state but paid for by the district. Teachers who received one ineffective rating in five years– based solely on the unreliable value-added test scores –could not be granted tenure, no matter what the principal or the Superintendent wanted, and any teacher rated ineffective two years in a row could lose their jobs.

These proposals represent an unprecedented attempt to centralize power over our public schools, and one that could severely damage them. The Governor’s attempt to double down on high stakes testing is not only the opposite to what is happening elsewhere in the country, as many states are moving away from test-based teacher evaluation systems, it also contradicts his recent campaign ads when he acknowledged that "Common Core scores" should not be used "for at least five years" and even then, "only if our children are ready." There is more information about the Governor’s destructive proposals on the NYC Parent blog, including a fact sheet you can download.

Many charter schools are hiring buses, closing for the day, and sending all their staff, students and parents to Albany to lobby for more funding and to raise the charter cap. It would be illegal for public schools to do this, and in any case, we would never recommend subtracting important time from student learning. Instead, we ask you to join with us and reach out to your school communities to protect your school – either before school or after the school day is over.

Please also let us of the day and time if you decide to join us, by emailing protectourschools1@gmail.com. For schools outside NYC, contact nys.allies@gmail.com or check out the website at http://www.nysape.org/protect-our-schools-campaign.html