July 30, 2009 @ 6:47 pm
Three ways to have your voice heard on Mayoral control
From Ellen Raider, Independent Commission on Public Education:
The Senate is expected to return to Albany next week to vote on school governance.
Please contact your Senators ASAP and urge them to vote against the Silver/Padavan bill. Even with the proposed amendments, it will be inadequate to provide the necessary checks and balances and/or necessary mechanisms for parent input.
Unlike any other city official, the Chancellor and his policies will remain immune to city law; the PEP will remain fundamentally unchanged; the CECs will not be strengthened, and the SLT’s will remain powerless to develop school-based budgets, contrary to their authority under previous administrations. There will be no Inspector General to investigate corruption and mismanagement at the highest levels; and no Ombudsperson to help resolve parental complaints.
Instead, the proposed changes are relatively modest: the creation of new parent training centers at CUNY; a new advisory arts council; the clarification of the role of superintendents, and a requirement that every school hold one meeting per year on school safety.
Although each of these additions are positive, they will not alter one iota the fact that two men, neither of whom have ever sent their children to a NYC public school, will continue to have absolute authority over our schools.
Bloomberg and Klein will continue to have the unmitigated power to waste millions of dollars on high-paid consultants and educrats. (For more on their financial mismanagement, see yesterday’s columns by Juan Gonzalez and Comptroller Thompson.) Meanwhile, our class sizes will continue to grow and our schools even more overcrowded. Our children will continue to lose arts, music and science and the ability to be educated into well-rounded adults, while test prep will continue to reign supreme.
1. Please send the below email to your Senators, after signing it with your name and full address. Their contact info is here: http://www.nysenate.gov/
Add or subtract anything you like to the message below. Also give them a call in their district offices; urge them to vote against the Silver/Padavan bill, as even with the four amendments, there will be insufficient checks and balances and provisions for the parent voice in decision-making.
2. Then email me the message at leonie@att.net, signed with your name, school, district and office if any; so we can collect signatures before sending it onto the Legislature before the final vote.
3. Finally, forward this message to at least five other parents who care about the future of our schools.
Thanks so much,
Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York , NY 10011
212-674-7320
leonie@att.net
www.classsizematters.org
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonie-haimson
Dear Legislator,
As your constituent, I urge you to vote against the Padavan/Silver bill even with the proposed chapter amendments. Its provisions are inadequate in terms of ensuring checks and balances and giving parents a seat at the table when it comes to our children’s schools.
We urge you to keep pushing for a better governance system; one that would ensure parent input at the school, district and citywide levels, rather than the autocratic system as currently exists.
Among those elements that would lead to a more meaningful role for parents would include:
– A more responsive, independent Board of Education, with fixed terms, and elected parent members;
– Making the DOE subject to city as well as state law;
– An independent Inspector General to investigate corruption and mismanagement at the highest levels of the DOE;
– An Ombudsperson to resolve parent complaints and propose reforms so that the systemic problems that provoke these complaints are addressed;
– Community Education Councils, elected by all parents, with the authority to approve all school openings, closings and resitings;
– School Leadership Teams with the right to develop Comprehensive Education Plans and school-based budgets, as occurred under previous administrations;
– An independent parent organization, to provide a voice for parents at all levels of the system.
While parent training centers would be helpful to help individual parents navigate a dysfunctional system, they will not provide parents a seat at the table when it comes to making important decisions about our schools– or ensure that the system as a whole becomes more functional for our kids.
We thank you for standing up to the mayor, and for showing respect for our views and our right to have some say in how our children are educated. We ask you to go one step further, and ensure that our voice is recognized in any future governance system.
Sincerely,
Name, address, school, district and office (if any)
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