Prepared Testimony for the People’s Budget Town Hall
The City of Seattle’s newly created Department of Education and Early Learning will spend $235 million over the next seven years on various education initiatives. This money gives the city a lot of leverage to pursue its vision of what it wants public education to look like in Seattle.
The purpose of the people’s budget is to create a participatory budgeting process where citizens decide what programs and initiatives should be funded with their tax dollars.
Many parents feel they aren’t being heard when it comes to education policy. Creating a people’s budget at the city and district levels would give parents, teachers, and principals an opportunity to have more of a say on where our education dollars are spent. Below is prepared testimony from the People’s Budget Town Hall which took place October 27th, 2015.
-Carolyn Leith
Most of us who have dedicated our work lives to public education do not think it’s ok that the Gates billionaire and millionaire cabal should be able to toss tax-deductible big money around to ruin and disrupt public education.
Every bit of progress we’ve made in pushing for progressive public education; for anti-racism, multicultural and alternative education models are being pushed back harder and harder. The most frequently heard lament from the school administrators is lack of funding. There is a lack of funding, of course. It is part of the plan. There is also a lay-down on the tracks mentality among these administrators who welcome this private money train.
We know now none of this corporate ed reform works. We’ve had too many years learning how much it does not work and how it hurts. We see it in the schools and in the whole fabric of society.
The school-to-prison pipeline is a deep, systemic problem. The part that public
Prepared Testimony for the People’s Budget Town Hall | Seattle Education:
