Parents to Senate Ed Committee: You need our input!
Today, Parents Across America sent a letter to the members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee after noting that panelists testifying this morning at a committee hearing on reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education law included no parent representatives.
PAA has reached out to the HELP committee repeatedly with our concern that parent voices are being left out of this critical discussion of the federal laws which will impact our children’s education for years to come.
Below is the text of the letter to the HELP committee, which includes PAA’s recommendations for an improved ESEA. A chart comparing PAA’s positions with the current Senate proposal is here.
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November 8, 2011
Re: Reauthorization of ESEA
Dear Senator Harkin and members of the HELP Committee:
We applaud the fact that you included several teachers and other educators as witnesses in today’s important
PSAT for 11-8-11: From RYH – where’s the schools’ TIF money
For today’s Public Schools Action Tuesday, an action alert from Raise Your Hand:
Call your Alderman today!
As discussions about the longer school day continue without any answers about funding, we ask that you call your alderman to see where they stand on the tif surplus issue. Currently, there is over $800 million in unallocated tax increment financing (TIF) money, and our mayor has said he wants to return less than 10% of this to CPS and other taxing bodies. At a time when our libraries and other services are being cut, and our schools are about to be lengthened in hours without adequate resources to fund the current day, we think this is unacceptable.
You might hear tif rhetoric such as it is “not sustainable” and it is “a band-aid” and “we can’t use this money.”