[TNS-list] rally on march 19

[Marjorie Ingall]

*hi, all...so there's another big rally at city hall scheduled to protest
the school budget cuts. it's wednesday, march 19 at 4pm, outside city hall,
on broadway south of chambers street. a group of us will be traveling
together from the Neighborhood School (exact time TBA) -- please come if you
can! hyunyup's eeeeeexcellent signs have gotten lots of attention.

this rally is being held by the Keep the Promises coalition, a group
dedicated to making sure that despite tough economic times, the city and
state keep their promises to our schoolchildren: to lower class size, to
build more schools, to fund full-day Pre-K, to improve middle schools, and t
o expand English Language Learners programs. despite these promises, $180
million was cut from school budgets in the middle of the year, and next year
there's an even deeper cut of $324 million scheduled. Keep the Promises
wants the DoE to open its own books before slashing dollars in our
classrooms.

our letter-writing campaign has been paying off -- we've heard back,
gratifyingly, from several politicians who want to help. we're also working
on scheduling a meeting with chancellor klein himself. let's keep up the
pressure!

if you can march with us, awesome. if not, it's never too late to write a
letter reminding those in power that we won't just stand idly by while money
for our kids' education gets torpedoed. i've pasted our letter-writing
guidelines below, along with contact info. please help us reinstate our
schools' budgets! so, as a reminder:
**

HOW TO SEND AN AWESOME LETTER

1. Parents deserve a voice! That's the main point.

2. The midyear budget cut, and larger cuts slated for next year, desperately
hurt our school. (Our school cut books, money for teachers to write
curriculum, arts programming, badly needed furniture and computers.) Next
year, we'll all have to cut even deeper.

3. Meanwhile, more and more money is being spent on standardized testing and
accountability systems. We aren't opposed to assessment (we have strong
measures in place within our school!) or even reasonable standardized
testing, but according to testing experts:

a. current tests are NOT BEING USED the way they're supposed to be

b. they are NOT YIELDING ACCURATE AND USABLE RESULTS, especially for  small
schools and schools that do test-prep

c. the DoE over-relies on these tests to make decisions about our kids' and
schools' futures.

4. And of course, we believe that kids are more than little bubbles on a
sheet! We believe in rich, deep, learning, which we're already doing here.
We love our school. [If you have an example of a fabulous multi-disciplinary
project (art gallery, post office, store, cooking, nifty offbeat math-y
thing etc.) your kid's class worked on, share it – specific examples are
powerful!] we also had a mom who told of how her daughter was puking before
a standardized test; Tobias said that one major reason tests have to be
thrown away is that they've been vomited on! this kind of stress isn't good
for our kids.

5. We want to be your partners; we share your goal of improving our
children's futures. Let's talk about how to spend some of the $ now
dedicated to testing and assessment (including flying in assessment people
from England!) on teaching, arts programs, books and supplies.

Be polite! Sign with your name, address, email, your kid's name and grade,
and the name of your school.

Thank you for helping save our kids' educations!

send to:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, City Hall, New York NY, 10007

Phone: 311

Fax: (212) 788-2460
Web Email Form (which limits you to 300 words, so don't use it if you're a
motormouth like me): http://nyc.gov/html/mail/html
/mayor.html<http://nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mayor.html>

Governor Eliot Spitzer, State Capitol, Albany NY, 12224
Phone: 518-474-8390
Web Email Form: Email Governor
<http://161.11.121.121/govemail>Spitzer<http://161.11.121.121/govemail>


If possible, contact or cc:
Christine Quinn: Quinn at council.nyc.ny.usSheldon Silver:
speaker at assembly.state.ny.us
Scott Stringer: bp at manhattanbp.org
Alan Gerson gerson at council.nyc.ny.us

It's never too late to write a letter! (Be sure to cc hyunyup at
pigsandfishes at earthlink.net.) Again, thanks so much, everyone!

--m





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