New York City Parent Leaders Statement On Governor Cuomo and The New York State Senate’s Agenda To Destroy Public Education:

New York City Parent Leaders Statement On Governor Cuomo and The New York State Senate’s Agenda To Destroy Public Education

Our School Children Deserve Better Than Political Chicanery, Graft and Pay-to-Play Politics

The New York State Senate yesterday introduced a budget resolution filled with legislative bills seeking to destroy public education to benefit privately managed education corporations known as charter schools.  In its budget resolution, the Senate is requiring school districts to provide rent-free space to new charter schools or pay for private facilities out of the school districts budget.  It also includes increased funding for privately run charter schools, it strips the New York City Mayor and the Panel for Education Policy of their authority to approve or deny charter co-locations in public school buildings and gives charter schools decision-making authority over classroom space in buildings they are currently co-located in.  Outside of New York City, school boards will be required to pay for facilities costs for charter schools or co-locate them in their public school buildings.

Governor Cuomo, Senator Dean Skelos and Senator Jeff Klein’s blatant attempt to destroy public education in exchange for contributions from the well moneyed charter lobby and hedge funders for their political careers is unconscionable.  The political chicanery and corruption in the “ed reform-political-complex” is unmatched in any democratic society throughout the world.

We call on parents throughout New York City and New York State to use their power and not vote for Governor Cuomo, Senator Skelos, Senator Klein and any other state legislator that seeks to deny our children of a high quality public education by putting privately run charter schools before our democratic public schools.

Shino Tanikawa, Manhattan Public School Parent and President of Community Education Council District 2* said:  “It is deeply disturbing to see such clear evidence of corruption in which charter operators with money dictate to Senators how they should be given everything they want while only serving a small proportion of students.  If this resolution passes, what little is left of our democratic process will be extinct and our schools – public and charters – will be run by charter operators and their minions in the state legislature.  And make no mistakes they do not have the interest of our children in their hearts.”

Jacqueline Colson, Queens Public School Parent and Member of Community Education Council District 25* said:  “Our children are not pawns in this “Game of Charters”. The queen Eva Moskowitz has made her move and King Cuomo has fallen into checkmate by destroying public schools. We need to take a stand and change the game.”

Noah E. Gotbaum, Manhattan Public School Parent, Vice President, Community Education Council District 3* said:  “Public school parents beware! This Senate Resolution steals control of our public schools from elected Mayors and school boards, and hands it to hedge fund managers and charter school lobbyists.  It would force cash-strapped school systems to hand over space and extra funding for the 3% in charters at the expense of the 97% in public schools.  And it would give charter corporations like Eva Moskowitz’s complete control over what happens in our public school buildings.  This Bill has nothing to do with what’s best for New York States 2.5 million kids, and everything to do with what’s best for a few hundred high-rolling campaign contributors. It is shameful.”

Leonie Haimson, Executive Director, Class Size Matters said:  “Thousands of public school students are put on waiting lists for Kindergarten each year, thousands more sit in trailers, and hundreds of thousands are sitting in overcrowded schools, yet this proposal would force NYC to give charter schools free space or pay for the construction of their schools  –over the rights of public school students.  Moreover, 5 out of the 7 provisions in the Senate proposal pertaining to charters would ONLY burden NYC with these obligations – and not the districts represented by the Republican Senators.  If Avella cannot get the Senate to give up this incredibly inequitable and damaging proposal, designed to force privatization of the NYC public school system because of the money and power of the hedge funders and billionaires that back the charter lobby, he should resign from the IDC”.

Benita Rivera, Founder of The Mother’s Agenda New York (The MANY) said:  “Once again the politicians, pro-charter power brokers and paid lobbyists have shown their blatant disgust— not only for any semblance of democracy, but as regrettably, for the best interests of the overwhelming majority of children in our traditional public schools. I would say “Shame on Governor Cuomo and the Senate Majority!,” except that this shabby cohort of political careerists in Albany know no shame.

Rivera continued:  The very idea of co-locating different schools, with different educational philosophies and vastly different resources under one roof is an absurdity ill-conceived by Michael Bloomberg.  Was it not through brute force and big money spent wrangling either naive or ethically-devoid state politicians, that he was able to impose his will upon the public to divvy-up our children’s developmental learning and social-play places without parent, teacher and especially, voter consent?  After all this time and so much energy, it is disheartening that we appear to be right back at square one in the struggle; which all seems part of the master’s plan to deconstruct and destroy public education as we know it.”

Mona Davids, Bronx Public School Parent and President of the New York City Parents Union said:  “Everybody laughs when we speak about the dysfunction in Albany.  We all shake our heads and shrug our shoulders when we hear of legislators arrested and convicted of corruption and accepting bribes from special interests.  We know that Governor Cuomo, Senator Dean Skelos and Senator Klein have received almost one-million dollars in contributions from the charter lobby that seeks to destroy public education.  Why aren’t they arrested and locked up for graft?  Charter schools are not public schools, they are non-profit education corporations governed a private boards.  Charter schools according to Eva Moskowitz are not accountable to the public or may be audited by the State Comptroller because they are not state units like public schools.  Siphoning money from public schools that serves all students, unlike charter schools, is clearly quid-pro quo for campaign contributions.   We call on the Attorney General to investigate the bribes sent to Governnor Cuomo, Senator Skelos and Senator Klein through the charter lobby’s many Political Action Committees and board members.

Davids continued:  We have overcrowded schools, students in trailers, schools with no libraries, no arts, no music and no physical education.  These schools serve the majority of New York State students.  Governor Cuomo, Senator Skelos and Senator Klein should be putting public schools first, not education corporations unaccountable to the public.”

Sam Pirozzolo, Staten Island Public School Parent, President of Community Education Council 31* said:  Almost since its inception, New York City public school parents have pointed out that Mayoral Control was out of control and the laws needed to be changed.  And for all of those years we thought our complaints were falling on deaf ears.  It now seems that Governor Cuomo and the State Legislature have finally heard our pleas, or have they?  Yesterday the NYS Senate introduced a bill that would effectively eliminate Mayoral Control, destroy the teachers union and create the largest reformatory school system in the world.  But were they actually listening to parents?  Heck no!  They are listening to the dollars of the powerful charter school lobby.  New York City public school parents have been walloped by two events yesterday.  First was the introduction of the legislation mentioned above and second was the victory given to Eva Moskowitz and her lucrative string of charter schools known as Succe$$ Academy Charter School$ when Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Thomas Breslin ruled state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli   did not have the authority to audit any New York charter because the schools are not technically “units of the state.” How is it possible that charter schools cannot be held accountable?  The NY City Council wants to see the books, they are concerned aboutcorruption.

Pirozzolo continued:  So what does this mean for hardworking tax paying New York City public school parents?  It means that we have been side stepped, overruled and ignored once again.  The path has been cleared to give choice to only a select few while the remaining neighborhood schools become filled with the outcasts of charter school children who couldn’t “make the grade” and are being returned into an already struggling public school system which has now been assured a straight and direct path to failure.

If anyone believes that the legislature would never allow for such a bill to be passed, I have two words for you, Tier 6.”

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* for identification purposes only

Contacts:
Mona Davids (646) 872-7149
Noah Gotbaum (917) 658-3213
Leonie Haimson (917) 435-9329
Sam Pirozzolo (917) 533-3437