Mayor Adams called protestors "clowns" and blamed Albany for his budget cuts to schools last night

This protest at a Harlem town hall against the Mayor's huge budget cuts to schools was reported briefly in the NY Post, but not what the Mayor actually said about these cuts, which he blamed on Albany.  

The Mayor claimed that "There's something called fair student funding, which is a wrong equation that we're fighting Albany to fix." 

Yet neither the Governor nor the Legislature have anything to do with his budget cuts to schools, or to Fair Student Funding, which is a formula devised by Chancellor Klein in 2007.  Indeed, the Legislature is sending $1.3 billion extra to our schools over three years, regardless of any enrollment decline. 

( Update: Sue Edelman on twitter just pointed out out that his claim they are paying 100% of FSF is also incorrect, as they cut the  allotment of about $25 per student in the formula, with as much as twice that much for kids with disabilities and other challenges.   DOE explained this as resulting from the FSF formula is pegged to the average teacher salary, which they claim has diminished in the past year, without refusing to disclose the actual amount of  the decline.)

See for yourself.  Check out what happened at about at 10 min. into the video, and also below.

 (Shouting in background of protesters from Make the Road NY, MORE caucus of the UFT, and New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools, who are dragged out of the room. ) 

Mayor Adams: You know, see, see this is the clown. This is the clown. And this is what we are up against people. 

People want to spend time being disruptive. That's what people want to do. But we got to stay focused and not get distracted. That's what we must do. Be focused and not distracted. Because people want to spend time on what they disagree on, and not spend time what we agree on. That’s what we have to be. So all that noise. All that noise, that's what folks don't understand. 

Listen, they are new to this. I'm not new to this. I'm true to this. I'm true to this. So because you are the loudest, does not mean you are saying something. Your ability to sit down and say, how do we work together because you can disagree with something, but you don't disagree with people should not be living in the state that they're living in now. And so if there's ever been a moment in history, if there's ever been a moment in history that personifies Esther 4:14. This is the moment God made me for such a time like this. I'm the right man for the right time to do what needs to be done in this city. 

Then, at about 38:40 minutes into the video:

Next table, Pastor Gil Monroe. 

Pastor Gil Monroe: Good evening and we're sorry for our friends. When will the budget of the DOE of $2 billion be restored,  cuts be restored? 

Mayor Adams: This is such, this DOE conversation is such an important one. You know because people have hijacked the conversation, so here’s what's happened with the with the Department of Education.

We have a massive hemorrhaging of students. Massive hemorrhaging when a very dangerous place in a number of students that we are dropping. There's something called fair student funding, which is a wrong equation that we're fighting Albany to fix.

But we are paying 100% of fair student funding. This is amount of money each child is allocated from Albany. If you have 1000 children in school, each child per child gets $1 Match attached to it.

We had a substantial drop in students in schools. So you start out with 1000 for argument's sake, you drop down to 600. Albany is saying we only pay you for 600. We're not paying you 1000. 

And so when we said to our schools, we said listen, they're cutting off our funding, the fair student funding. So we're not going to cut you off right away. We have stimulus dollars. We're going to use a stimulus dollars to keep you whole,  we talked about last year, but you got to start adjusting to have the 600 students. We came this year, we said we still not going to cut you off we're going to give you three fourths of the amount that we normally give you. 

But next year because of the stimulus dollars, we got to give you 50% of the dollars that we normally give you. But the year after, we have no more federal dollars. Then we get hit with other things that Albany is putting on us without giving us the money for, so what we did is slowly adjust based on the student population and the money that's coming from Albany. So we need your help to tell Albany, let's change the equation based on the number of students we have in our school, so we won't lose your money in our schools. 

We're gonna base it on with Albany is doing, we are creatures of Albany, they give us our fair student funding. Now we would like the bad guy because we don't want that I adjust with Albany is doing to us. We need Albany to do the right thing and make sure we get the fair student funding increase so that we can put the money into schools. Right now we're keeping them as whole as possible with the federal money is going to run out and when it runs out, we don't we no longer have that cushion that we had. So it's not our desire to cut any money. We that's why we did only three fourths this year. Next year, we got to do 50%.

But then we got we got to fall off the cliff if we don't get the support that we need from Albany.

Pictures and words from our amazing rally yesterday; protesting Gov. Cuomo's forced charter takeover of our public schools

Yesterday, we held a terrific rally with hundreds of parents and kids, filling the steps of the NY Public Library, outraged at the onerous provisions in the state budget bill that would force the city to give every new and expanding charters preference for public school space going forward or cover the cost for them to obtain private space.  The rally was the result of an unprecedented outreach and organizing effort by Community Education Council leaders, elected by public school parents citywide,  to inform them of what had happened, and allow them to express their justified outrage at the forced privatization of our public schools. For more on the rally see our press release on Diane Ravitch's blog here.

This is the most egregious charter preference law in the nation, and the most acute violation of local control.  As Sen. Liz Krueger pointed out at the rally, the privatizers avidly supported mayoral control when that mayor was Michael Bloomberg, eager to give away our schools to charter operators.

But when New Yorkers overwhelmingly elected  a mayor who said he would charge charters rent and hold a moratorium on co-locations, the powers that be persuaded the Governor and the leaders of the Legislature to perform a bloodless coup, to essentially eliminate mayoral control and force the city to pay for unlimited charter expansion at the cost of our public school students, creating even more division, overcrowding, deprivation and larger class sizes. 

Here are some snapshots from the afternoon -- which sadly few media outlets chose to cover:

Yes!  All Kids do Matter.  And the Governor should stop playing favorites and do his duty by providing an equal education for all children.

Gloria Corsino, President of the Citywide District 75 Council, with a sign pointing out how the Governor and (some of ) our Senators sold us out.

Some of the elected leaders who came to support our rally and oppose the hostile takeover of our schools included State Senators Brad Hoylman, Liz Krueger, and City Council Education Chair Danny Dromm.

The crowd continued to gather, and despite the anger, it was a festive occasion with green balloons and an opportunity to have our voices heard for a change. 

Brad Hoylman, one of only three Senators to vote against the budget bill, saying, "Did any ask the parents if they wanted their kids evicted out of classrooms and art rooms to make way for charters?"  The answer was a resounding NO!

Councilmember Danny Dromm, chair of the Education Committee and a former teacher for 22 years, called the new charter provisions "education apartheid."

The civil rights leader Hazel Dukes, President  of the NAACP New York State Conference, told how she will continue to fight for the rights of all children for a quality education, and pointed out that 60 years after Brown vs. Board of Education, special needs kids are getting their services in closets due to charter encroachment.

Hundreds of us march to the Governor's office on 3rd Avenue, while chanting, led by drummers.

We collect (fake) money to give to the Governor, as this is what appears to be motivating his preferential treatment of charter operators and their hedge fund backers, who have contributed nearly $1 million to his re-election campaign.

Children and their parents cross the street to meet with the Governor's representative, to give her a postcard addressed to Cuomo, signed by kids and parents, urging him not to sell-off our schools, with (fake) money taped to it.

The children hold up the post card to the Governor, with a stamp portraying Rich Uncle Pennybags from Monopoly.  (Thanks Shino Tanikawa for her artwork!)  They  hold more signs, saying "Don't Squish us in, Public Schools Necesitamos Espacio!"

The Governor's deputy press secretary carries the post card back into their offices. 

Meanwhile, Brooklyn parents, facing a Success co-location that the community uniformly opposes, get into a heated argument with a Success employee, there to videotape the proceedings for Eva Moskowitz.

Our protest ends with a speech by Senator Bill Perkins, one of the other three Senators to vote against the budget bill, along with Sen. Velmanette Montgomery.   He compares the proliferation of charter schools to the growth of Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises selling unhealthy food; and adds that charter operators are like "wolves in sheep clothing."

Education Nation ignores parents but we make our voices heard at the premiere of "Won't Back Down"

Yesterday was NBC's Education Nation's "parent engagement" town hall, which turned out

Real-life public school parents

to be nothing but a big infomercial for the controversial film  "Won't Back Down" promoting the "Parent Trigger" and the privatization of our public schools. (See our review of the film and our FAQ about its backers and their political agenda.) The Education Nation parent engagement panels featured the stars of the film, along with privateers Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein, two people who have never shown any  interest in parent empowerment.

Movie poster starring Klein and Murdoch

Only two public school parents appeared on any of the panels, neither of them from NYC, and though the audience was full of real life public school parents, not a single one was allowed to speak. A more frustrating hour I have never spent. Rhee and Klein were pushing "choice" and charters, predictably enough, and Klein, who runs Murdoch's for-profit virtual learning division, was also hawking online learning, though weirdly the NBC host described him as running "an educational organization."

Fake public school parents

Afterwards, we bumped into one of the two parents allowed to speak, Chicago's Vanessa Bush Ford, who also expressed frustration at the lack of substance in the event (they kept showing us clips from the movie, some of the same clips twice). Then we joined the real-life parent protest outside the red carpet premiere at the Ziegfield, where we held our own "red carpet" event. One confused reporter asked us if this was an "actual parent protest" (unlike the fictional ones depicted in the film.)

Yes, this was indeed a real life protest, starring real-life public school parents. unlike the rest of the day's events, which featured  movie actors and corporate reformers who would like to spin their own illusions, while ignoring our priorities.  I was happy to find out afterwards by watching MSNBC's coverage inside the theater that our voices could be heard. Check out our video below of the protest. Short news clips about the protest were also run by WNBC and Fox News.




Wont back down protest from Class Size Matters on Vimeo.

Rally on Wed. at City Hall to protest budget cuts to schools!

Join parents at a rally/press conference opposing the mayor’s devastating budget cuts to our schools!

Where: the steps of City Hall

When: Wednesday, March 30 at 9:30 AM

Here is a flyer you can post or distribute in your schools.

The Mayor plans to eliminate 6,000 teaching positions, which would lead to huge increases in class size.

The savings from these cuts would be only about $350 million; far less than the city’s expected budget surplus of $3 billion.

Class sizes in the early grades are already the largest in more than a decade; come make your voices heard that these cuts are unfair and immoral!

Following this press conference, the City Council will hold hearings to consider these education cuts.

Sponsored by Class Size Matters, Parents Across America, the Public School Political Action Committee, the NY Charter Parents Association, Concerned Advocates for Public Education, the Grassroots Education Movement, and other parent groups (in formation)

Police spy on protesters against school closings, in violation of our civil rights

See this video of the NY Police Department, taking photographs of parents, students and teachers, who were peacefully protesting on Jan. 21 on the mayor's block, against his proposals to force mass closings of public schools and their takeover by charter schools. We were exercising our constitutional right under the First Amendment to publicly demand that these destructive policies be stopped.

Meanwhile, a reporter from the Village Voice caught on videotape police taking photographs from the roof of and inside the Rudolph Steiner school, directly adjacent to the mayor's house.

In 1985, the federal court ruled that it is illegal for the New York City police to take photos of protesters, unless they have cause to believe that a crime may be committed.

The city signed a consent agreement that year, restricting police surveillance according to these rules, called the Handschu agreement. In the case of this peaceful protest, there was no such cause and this is clearly intimidation tactics, and/or a violation of civil rights.

The police responded to inquiries from the press yesterday, by claiming that they were taking pictures for "for crowd control planning purposes," which, on the face of it, sounds absurd.

The administration's surveillance of critics of its education policies does not occur in a vacuum. Remember how in 2007, it came out that the DOE had assigned an employee to tape Diane Ravitch, and was keeping a dossier on her?

And subsequently, it was revealed that Chris Cerf, then Deputy Chancellor, had assigned several of his staff to closely monitor our NYC education list serv, among others?

This is what Diane wrote at the time, after the DOE had gotten Kathy Wylde to publish an oped in the NY Post, attacking her:

"The public schools need involvement by parents and local communities. They need a lively and open public forum in which decisions can be debated before they are finalized. The public should have a voice in what happens to the children of the community. This I promise: I will continue to analyze the facts and the evidence to the best of my ability, without fear or favor. I will not be intimidated."

Neither will we.

See Group Claims NYPD Violated Protest Rights‎ (NY1); Civil rights lawyer Siegel snaps at NYPD for protest photos outside Mayor Bloomberg’s townhouse (Daily News); Voice Video Shows NYPD Snapping Photos of School Demonstrators at Mayor Bloomberg’s House (Village Voice); and video of our press conference (thanks to David Bellel).

Come join our protest at the mayor's house!

On Friday, Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the Federal District Court upheld the right of parents, students, teachers and other concerned citizens to exercise their first amendment rights and peacefully protest against the school closures and charter school invasions in front of the Mayor's house on E. 79 St. on January 21.

Up to now, the city has been blocking protesters from this public space.

Please come! Bring signs and bring your children so they can be part of this historic event.

Remember, even if your school is not directly affected, the proposed closings and charter school sitings will lead to more overcrowding and larger classes citywide, and will come at a tremendous human and fiscal cost to the system.

Thousands of students will likely be discharged, most of them ELL and special ed, without a chance to graduate with a high school diploma. Hundreds of teachers will be put on absent teacher reserve.

When: Thursday, Jan. 21 from 4 -6:30 PM

Where: Meet on the SW corner of 79 St. and 5th Avenue, near Central Park.

A flyer you can post or distribute in your school is here.

Here is the Times on this victory; an excerpt from the court transcript follows:

Judge Hellerstein: Now, a curtailment of basic First Amendment rights is an irreparable damage. If I curtail the right peacefully to picket and peacefully to express views, I'm curtailing, theoretically, First Amendment rights. And so the denial of those rights constitutes irreparable damage.

....we live in a democracy. And to the greatest extent possible, we need to find ways to both engage in all the protective devices that are necessary to protect our governance in our society while not compromising, wherever we can avoid compromising, the constitutional rights of citizens to demonstrate, to express their views, and protest, and picket.

…The picketing is against the increase of charter schools that I'm told the mayor is planning. Since the mayor is the political leader and elected leader of the city and in charge of the educational system of the city, the point is to picket effectively where residence of the mayor is. As regulated by the provisions I read out, I grant the motion.