Victories in Tuesday’s primaries, upcoming elections and save the date for our Parent Action Conference!

We at NYC Kids PAC are thrilled with the primary results from Tuesday night.  Seven of our endorsed candidates as pictured above won their primaries and will likely go on to win in November.

All of them have exceptional records and stances on supporting our public schools, keeping the cap on charters, putting checks and balances on Mayoral control, and taking progressive positions on the other issues that matter.

Public school parents and advocates will have new, energetic and influential friends in Albany who will help lead to real change.

We understand that there are many who were disappointed that Zephyr Teachout wasn’t elected Attorney General.  Both Zephyr and Tish James were terrific candidates, and both deserved to win, but  only one could.  Kids PAC is the only NYC-based PAC that focuses solely on education, and our executive board is made up of  parent activists who make endorsements through consensus.

As a NYC Councilmember and Public Advocate, Tish earned our endorsement because of her exceptional record in fighting to keep the public in our public schools, whether it be for budget transparency, the rights of kids with special needs, suing the DOE to prevent school closures and charter co-locations, and ensuring that School Leadership team meetings remain open to the public.

Given Tish’s record, we are confident that she will continue to battle against corruption and the private interests that would like to undermine our public schools and for the right of parents to be full partners in improving them.  We also hope and expect that Zephyr will remain involved in public life, because hers is a voice that needs to be heard.

But the election season is far from over.  We will soon announce endorsements for the November general elections,  which are right around the corner.  We’ll also reach out to the candidates running for Public Advocate to replace Tish James as soon as they are announced, to urge them to complete our survey.  As usual, we will then decide through consensus who to endorse, after evaluating their responses and their records on public education. Keep tuned.

Finally, we are now planning our fourth annual Parent Action Conference to be held on January 19, co-sponsored with Class Size Matters; please save the date!  If you have ideas for workshops or speakers, please send them to us at info@nyckidspac.org with your thoughts.  We will  update you with more information soon.

Yours sincerely,

Shino, Isaac, Gloria, Fatima, Leonie, Eduardo, Margaret, Andy, Brooke, Jiin, Naila, Karen and Tesa

NYC Kids PAC endorsements

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For immediate release

Sept. 4, 2014

For more information contact: Shino Tanikawa, info@nyckidspac.org , 917-770-8438

NYC KidsPAC endorses Teachout for Governor, Jackson, Liu, Koppell for State Senate;

Fedkowskyj and Simon for Assembly

Today, NYC KidsPAC, a political action committee composed of parent leaders devoted to strengthening our public schools, announced its endorsements in the Democratic primary due to take place next Tuesday, Sept. 9.  KidsPAC endorsed Zephyr Teachout and Tim Wu for Governor and Lieutenant Governor, over the incumbent Andrew Cuomo and his running mate, Kathy Hochul.

KidsPAC’s other endorsements in contested races include: Robert Jackson for State Senate District 31 in Manhattan, John Liu for the 11^th Senate District seat in Queens, Dmytro Fedkowskyj for Assembly Seat District 30 in Queens, Oliver Koppell for Senate District 34 Seat in the Bronx, and Jo Anne Simon, campaigning to replace retiring Joan Millman in the 52nd Assembly District in Brooklyn.

Said Shino Tanikawa, parent leader and President of KidsPAC, “NYC KidsPAC wholeheartedly endorses Zephyr Teachout for Governor for her commitment to fight against privatization of our public education.  We need a governor who believes in small class sizes, provides adequate resources for our most vulnerable students, respects the profession of teaching, opposes education driven by standardized tests and will fight for a high quality schools for all students throughout the State.  We believe Zephyr is the right candidate who will move us in the right direction.”  

Shino added: “Governor Cuomo, on the other hand, has massively cut education aid to our schools, opposes fully funding CFE – despite a court order – and owes NYC more than $2000 per student.  He also supports raising the cap on charters, and has pushed through preferential access for charters to expand in space paid for by the city, while hundreds of thousands of our public school students sit in overcrowded schools, in trailers or on waiting lists for their zoned neighborhood school.”

“Though Robert Jackson and the incumbent Adriano Espaillat both completed surveys emphasizing their support for public schools, Jackson has a long history of leadership on education issues.  He was the original plaintiff in the CFE case, walked to Albany for the final deliberations in court, and was a terrific advocate as Chair of the Education Committee on the NYC Council.  Wherever and whenever we have needed him, Robert Jackson has stood for us and with us, fighting for the rights of our kids.  Now parents must be there for him,” said Karen Sprowal, a board member of NYC KidsPAC and a long time Harlem resident.

 “John Liu and Tony Avella have strong education records, but Liu was an exemplary City Councilmember and Comptroller – always pushing to keep the Department of Education honest in its reporting.  Moreover, we cannot forget how Avella deserted the Democratic Party to join forces with the GOP, which has consistently opposed full funding for NYC schools and supports privatization, vouchers and charter expansion,” said Isaac Carmignani, long-time parent leader in Queens.

“KidsPAC is endorsing Oliver Koppell for State Senate against Jeff Klein, as Klein led the defection from the Democratic majority to prop up the GOP, which has hurt our schools badly.  Klein also supported the egregious provisions in this year’s budget, providing preferential treatment and public space at city expense for charter schools – despite the fact that the public schools in his district are hugely overcrowded and badly need expansion,” said Gloria Corsino, a Bronx parent leader.

Isaac Carmignani explained, “We enthusiastically support Dmytro Fedkowskyj, running against the incumbent Margaret Markey in Queens.  Dmytro was a strong advocate for NYC parents and kids when he was the Queens member on the Panel for Educational Policy.  As his candidate survey shows, he will continue to be a strong advocate as Assemblymember.  He opposes test-driven education, is strongly against raising the cap on charters and supports full funding for our public schools.”

Finally, NYC KidsPAC is endorsing Jo Anne Simon vs.  Pete Sikora in the Assembly.  Tesa Wilson, a Brooklyn parent and KidsPAC board member said, “Though both Simon and Sikora responded with positive answers to our candidate survey, Simon has been a long-time advocate for the rights of special needs students, and for full funding and smaller classes in our public schools.  In our survey, she came out strongly against raising the cap on charters.  While Sikora said he was supportive of keeping the cap this year, he was in favor of re-evaluating the cap in future years.”

The links to our endorsements, completed candidate surveys and the NYSAPE Governor’s scorecard can be found on our website at www.nyckidspac.org .

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NYC Kids PAC Endorses deBlasio for Mayor, James for Public Advocate and Stringer for Comptroller

Mayor: We endorse Bill de Blasio for Mayor. De Blasio has run a courageous campaign and has been outspoken on many of the issues parents care about including privatization, co-locations, testing and the need for more parent input in our public schools. This was not an easy decision for us to make, as John Liu's responses to our survey were the best of all the Democratic candidates, and his record as a City Comptroller has been exemplary.

Yet Liu's candidacy at this point appears to be a long shot, and we believe that electing a Mayor who will reverse the downward spiral that the Bloomberg administration has taken our schools is absolutely vital. All the Mayoral candidates who responded to our survey deserve credit for providing us with thoughtful and revealing responses. We urge parents and others who care about education to take a look.

We want to praise the other frontrunners, including Bill Thompson for being willing to give up the mayoral majority on the Board of Education, and Chris Quinn, for supporting checks and balances to mayoral control through the City Council, as well as some of their other positive stances on the issues that matter. But the positions Quinn has taken in the past in going along with the damaging Bloomberg agenda, and Thompson's relative quiescence over the last twelve years rules them out in our eyes.

Bill de Blasio, we hope and believe, will stop the rampant privatization of our schools and the overemphasis on testing, will listen more closely to the concerns of parents and communities, and will push for new investments in expanding preK, improving classroom conditions and alleviating school overcrowding. He has pledged to charge charter schools for the space and services they now receive for free, and to take personal student information out of inBloom Inc. and refrain from sharing it with third parties without parental consent.

We hope he takes a second, hard look at the governance issue before mayoral control comes up for a vote in 2015, because no matter how benign, no mayor -- indeed, no public official -- should have the unchecked power that the state has given the NYC mayor in running our schools. In the meantime, we are confident that Bill de Blasio will take public education in a far better direction than Bloomberg has during the last 12 years.

Public Advocate: We endorse Letitia James without reservations. In the City Council, Tish James has battled for more transparency in contracting, and has supported public school parents during divisive co-location battles in her district. She has also highlighted and advocated for children as young as five who have been repeatedly suspended and pushed out of charter schools. Her responses to our survey were terrific and show great understanding of the issues.

We are concerned that both Reshma Saujani and Daniel Squadron are too closely linked to the wealthy hedge fund community who want to privatize our public schools - and neither one filled out our surveys, despite repeated requests. Cathy Guerriero deserves praise for her advocacy and her progressive positions on education issues, and we hope she runs for public office again in the future. But Letitia James wins our wholehearted support, not only because of her strong stances, but also because of her track record as a public official for standing up for what is right, both in her community and citywide. We believe that Letitia James will make an excellent Public Advocate.

City Comptroller: We endorse Scott Stringer, because of his laudable record as Manhattan Borough President. Stringer has released a series of excellent reports on school overcrowding and technology, and frequently meets with parents and constituents and listens to our concerns. He has a very able and hard-working policy staff, and deserves credit for appointing and retaining Patrick Sullivan, the best representative on the Panel for Educational Policy that could be imagined. Stringer has allowed Sullivan to argue vociferously with the DOE policies, and vote independently, according to his conscience and his brains. Despite repeated requests to his campaign, Spitzer did not respond to our survey.

While Stringer's positions on school governance are not as strong as we would like, he has a history of working well with parents, has pushed hard to get more schools built both in his borough and citywide, and has put forward some excellent plans for what he would do as Comptroller, including developing a real needs analysis of school capacity to alleviate overcrowding and reduce class size - something the Bloomberg administration has refused to do in 12 years. He also intends to conduct cost-benefit studies of the outsourcing of city contracts, a practice that has been abused by this administration. We believe that Scott Stringer would make an admirable City Comptroller.

NYC Kids Political Action Committee is run by volunteer parents who currently have or recently had children attending NYC public schools. The decision to endorse is based on responses to our survey, the candidates' track record, specific plans and proposals put forth by the candidates and the potential impact on the election. In developing the survey we solicited input from more than 2,000 constituents.

No matter whom you support, please make sure to vote next Tuesday, September 10. 

Thanks, Shino, Mario, Isaac, Lisa, Leonie, Andy, Karen and Tesa for NYC Kids PAC 

PS We're quoted in today's Daily News about the fact that Chris Quinn is the only major Democratic candidate who has not pledged to take our personal student data out of inBloom Inc. as soon as possible. Take a look!

NYC Kids PAC launches; check out our endorsements!

Whether you're concerned about governance and Mayoral control, or about school overcrowding, you know we need real change in our public schools.

Public school parents have started a new organization, called NYC Kids PAC, to support candidates who are working to make the sort of changes we need. More information about NYC Kids PAC is at Gotham Schools ; also see our (very new) website at www.nyckidspac.org, that has our mission statement and a list of founding members.

As we learned from from the school governance battle in Albany and the struggle in the City Council for a better capital plan, we need to elect representatives who take their responsibilities to our kids seriously. We call for real action to end overcrowding, ensure parent input, and give our children real opportunity and protect their civil rights. We will build parent power through the ballot box.

We have endorsed the following candidates in the primaries taking place on Tuesday, and hope you will support them for their work on behalf of better schools:

--- For City Comptroller, we endorse John Liu, who as Councilmember voted against the school capital plan and demanded enhanced accountability from the DOE as a member of the Council's Education Committee;

--- For Public Advocate, we endorse Norman Siegel, for his pro bono work representing the interests of public school parents in the cell phone and Randall's Island lawsuits.

--- For reelection to the City Council, we endorse the six members who voted against the inadequate school capital plan: in alphabetical order,Charles Barron, Alan Gerson, Robert Jackson, Ken Mitchell, Diane Reyna, and Al Vann;

--- For City Council, we endorse Mark Weprin, who as a state Assemblymember voted against the Silver/Padavan legislation that continued the current system of mayoral control, with no checks and balances;

If you would like to become a member of NYC Kids PAC, or send a contribution, send an email to nyckidspac@gmail.com

thanks,

Ann Kjellberg, President, NYC Kids PAC