Say NO! to a massive corporate giveaway in the budget bill, and a video of Middletown HS students on this outrage
Dear parents: PLEASE call your legislators in Albany today and urge them to vote NO on the state budget bill! On Monday, the Legislature will be voting on a budget that favors charter schools over public schools, provides them considerably more funds per student , bans charging charters rent or facility fees, and will guarantee any new or expanding charter free space in NYC public school buildings – or the city has to build or rent them facilities out of taxpayer funds. NYC will be the ONLY place in the country where the district will be obligated to provide free space for ANY new or expanded charter in the future.
The bill also contains very weak provisions on protecting student privacy, and it is not even clear if it would stop inBloom. For more on the bill's inept and deceptive privacy provisions see our blog here.
It is rather amazing that while Cuomo has deliberately refused to provide our schools with equitable funding or the ability to reduce class size -- which the state's highest court deemed necessary for students to receive their constitutional right to a sound, basic education -- he is instead allowing hedge funders and corporate interests to hijack the space in our schools and our children's personal data.
Please contact your legislators today in Albany today, and ask them to tell their leaders that this massive giveaway to corporate interests should not go forward -- or they should vote no on the budget.
Your Assemblymember's contact info is here; your Senator is here. Meanwhile, the students of Middletown HS in NY say it better than I do. See their video below.