Teachers at PS 193 Fight Budget Cuts in a Special Way

Teachers at PS 193 in Brooklyn decided to rewrite the lyrics to a well-known song from Grease. They performed it on the morning of June 23, 2010 in front of the school. Some arriving parents and students got a great kick out of seeing their teachers fighting for them. Ed Notes was there to cover.




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ALL OUT FOR JUNE 4TH! STILL!!!! We stand united in saying no layoffs, not now, not ever.

I know, they are saying there will be no layoffs. Bloggers like Accountable Talk predicted it, knowing full well BloomKlein couldn't stand to let the newer teachers go. But first they tried to pull their anti-seniority ploy. I still think that is coming next year when as closing schools swell (after the one year moratorium) so will the ATR pool and major costs to the city.

As one commenter on ICE mail said, in 1995 Giuliani and the UFT agreed on a 2 year freeze due to massive threatened layoffs. The next year the city had a billion dollar surplus. As The Who said, "We WILL get fooled again!"
This was no brilliant move today, but planned all along. They tried to drag Mulgrew into it and first reports had the union complicit but they cleared that up. What difference in reality whether the union agreed or not? They have no power to do anything about it. And for all we know, who can tell what backroom deals there are. Could BloomKlein and the UFT be playing good cop, bad cop? You know me, I'm always suspicious.

Or maybe they just got scared by our 20 and growing school demo on Friday.

Here is the point. These are little actions at the school level. But overall they have a bigger impact in that people will be taking action. That has been missing so far. A sense of resistance. Now, I am getting calls from people about stuff their principals are doing and they are not sure what to do about it. They are acting as individuals and leaving themselves at risk. But if the chapter was really organized they would have a mechanism to fight.

So this June 4th thing (and they may do it again on June 11) is not just about budget cuts and info picketing or giving out "pink hearts instead of pink slips" like the AFT/UFT wants with no sense of how that plugs into building a long-term union spirit at the school level. But look at it beyond the school level. Schools are excited that other schools are doing it too. People want to talk to each other, something the UFT never tries to promote - they want each school isolated and forced to deal through the district reps, some of whom try to keep the CLs from sharing school info with each other at district meetings. That is why people are gathering at Tweed on Friday afternoon for a rally/party meet each other - similar to the great rally at Bloomberg's in January. Starting to end school level isolation and building school to school relationships is an important component in these events.

The entire June 4th toolkit is available at the GEM blog - well actually the links to the scribd pdfs are available. Click the link of the doc you want and when you get there look for the green download button. If you are taking part and want to post pictures and video we are working on it. Send along links to you tube and pics.

Here are a few posts from Wed night, starting with the June 4 coalition press advisory, followed by PS 24's Sam Coleman email and an analysis by Marjorie Stamberg.

Press Advisory -June 4th Coalition

Date: Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Contact:

Sam Coleman: 646-354-9362, Teacher PS 24, NYCORE/GEM

Parents, Students, and Teachers Rally to Demand Mayor Bloomberg Prioritize Public Education Spending and Withdraw Proposed School-Based Budget Cuts and Teacher Layoffs

When: Friday, June 4th, Morning Pickets and Day-Long Actions (times and events vary by school community)

Friday, June 4th, 4:30 PM @ TWEED

Where: School Communities @ PS 24K, PS 15K, PS 30M, PS 197M, Jamaica High School, PS 123M, PS 193K, PS 41M, PS 84K, The Brooklyn New School, Prospect Heights International High School, PS 202K, PS 3K, PS 307K, IS 218, PS 89K, PS 321, PS 197M, The Earth School, Banana Kelley, Fredrick Douglass Academy 5, Benjamin Banneker High School, East Flatbush Community Research School, Humanities Prep and many other school communities city-wide.

On Friday, June 4th, Parents, Students, and Teachers will participate in a city-wide day of protest to demand Mayor Bloomberg prioritize public school spending and withdraw his intention to further slash school-based budgets as well as his initial plan to fire over 6,000 teachers. These cuts and proposed layoffs, will siphon approximately 400 million dollars from New York City public school children, this as the IBO projects a city-wide budget surplus in 2010 and 2011 and other government agencies under the Mayor’s control are projected to face no cuts at all. In addition, the education system in New York City has already experienced drastic cuts: approximately $546 million since June 2009's adopted budget, according to the Independent Budget Office. Of this, $261 million came out of classroom funding. These further cuts will increase class size, increase teacher student ratios, services and programs will be cut including after school, remediation, and enrichment; the entire public school system will be destabilized and weakened. As for the layoffs, the Mayor rescinded the proposal this week, and it must be clear we stand united in saying not now, not ever.

This grassroots day of actions grew out from a community public school in Sunset Park, Brooklyn where parents and teachers have been organizing around disastrous public education policies including the issue of testing. Sam Coleman, one of the lead organizers of the event, a teacher from PS 24 said, “The staff at PS 24 decided we could not sit idly by while our students’ education and our livelihoods were being threatened. We realized the only voice that will ever be heard is that of the whole school community; parents, students, and staff. We want to show the public and politicians that we are willing to take action in order to force a change in political priorities. The whole PS 24 community demands fully and equitably funded public education for all New York City children.”

Various school communities across the city will be taking differentiated actions in a unified protest of the Mayor’s education spending priorities. Individual schools will be holding pickets, signing petitions, and form letters, and will disseminate educational materials to spread awareness about the destructive educational policies and decision-making of Mayor Bloomberg and his Chancellor, Joel Klein. The day will end with a group protest at Tweed, where concerned citizens will join in solidarity and make their voices heard after taking community-based actions throughout the day.

Additional Contacts:

Lydia Bellahcene: lillytigre@yahoo.com, 347-463-9809, Parent PS 15, CAPE

Mark Torres: harlem120@msn.com, 212-348-5732, Co-Chair, CPE/CEP

Julie Cavanagh: juliereed15@hotmail.com, 917-836-6465, Teacher PS 15, CAPE/GEM


SAM WRITES
Over 20 schools are planing actions on June 4th before or after school!

We are rallying at Tweed at 4:30 to let the mayor and the DOE know that budget cuts and salary freezes are not an acceptable solution!

Today the mayor announced that he and the UFT made a deal to avoid the layoffs. This is a lie! Our union has not agreed to a salary freeze.
Nor should they. The mayor is playing dirty politics (even for him!). We cannot let him get away with this!

Now more than ever, our voices are needed on Friday. Our union needs to know that we are mobilized and ready to fight for a fair contract regardless of an underhanded mayor baiting us in the press. The families and communities at our schools need to know we are still fighting for our student's education.

- There will STILL be 2000 positions lost due to attrition which will mean bigger classes and more teachers forced into the ATR pool.

- The budget cuts to schools will STILL mean loss of after-school programs, art, summer school and other "non-essential" services to our students.

- With a hiring freeze, and salary freeze, they are STILL spending $5 million on recruiting new teachers.

- Teachers are STILL paying for Wall Street's greed.

We say thanks Mike, but no thanks. We STILL did not make this mess, we will not be forced to clean it up. Tax those in our city who can afford to pay more, ESPECIALLY THOSE ON WALL STREET WHO WALKED AWAY WITH 9 BILLION IN BONUSES COURTESY OF AMERICAN TAX PAYERS!

You cannot negotiate with our union in the press! We will not allow it! No budget cuts, no layoffs, no pay cuts, not now, not ever!

email: sam@nycore.org for questions or to let us know that you are with us.


Marjorie Stamberg writes:
It is crunch time in the UFT and Friday is the first of several important demonstrations where we need colleagues to come out and support the teachers and the students.

The situation is changing daily. Today the mayor declared there will be no teacher layoffs, but there will also be no raises for teachers in the next two years. Oh really? Bloomberg can't decide what raises there will and not be -- this is a contract issue. We have to keep on struggling to make sure the city doesn't try to make teachers pay for the economic crisis that we didn't cause.

Bloomberg's announcement was interesting -- it is clear the city could not afford to take the political hit on the layoffs. Particularly since it would have hit the teachers in many of the new small schools Bloomberg-Klein set up, and which are staffed with first year teachers. The layoffs would have virtually wiped out the teaching staff at these schools.

It is very important that we defend the jobs of ALL teachers and build the union's strength by supporting veteran and new teachers.

Here are upcoming protests, there may be others as well:

---Friday June 4, protest at Tweed-DOE headquarters, 4 pm, a protest called by two teacher groups, the Grassroots Education Movement NYCORE--New York Coalition of Radical Teachers. Directions: any train to Chambers St or City Hal).

This demo is calling for no teacher layoffs and no budget cuts. They are going to give out "pink slips" to the DOE top brass--the guys in the suits getting the 5 and 6 figure salaries while everything else is getting cut. The protest is culminating many local school-based activities and leafleting on that day.

June 10 is a picket protest outside Bloomberg's house on the upper east side to support the embattled teachers at Bronx HS of Science. Peter Lamphere, the chapter leader is facing major harassment as are all the math teachers at Bronx Science -- who were all U rated two years ago! The case went to arbitration but there are still many issues and we need everyone to come out and support Peter and the teachers at Bronx Science.

On June 16, the UFT is having a mega demonstration at City Hall with the other NYC Municipal Labor Committee public unions. You know, where they bring up the jumbo-trons and the rat and the whole nine-yards. This will be a big labor turnout--a gathering of a big chunk of the city labor movement. I am critical that the Delegate Assembly was called off for this demo -- that was an important place for teachers and their delegates to speak their piece about any proposed settlement. Still, it is important that everyone who possibly can, come out.

That's it for now -- I'll keep you posted with my "take" on rapidly changing events.

Marjorie

IS 218 Protests Budget Cuts; UFT Doesn't

Newly elected IS 218K Chapter Leader Tom Crean sends this along. Too late for publication in the NY Teacher? Did the UFT consider Edwize or the UFT web site? Really fighting budget cuts, not their thing - the only way they know how to cut the cuts is by selling off future teacher pensions.


Letter to chancellor. Click to enlarge


Below is a brief report meant originally for the New York Teacher about a June 12 protest held outside my school, IS218 in East New York against the savage cut in our budget. Apparently it was too late for publication.

I also attach several photos and a letter the school’s UFT chapter sent to Joel Klein. Now that the budget has been passed by the City Council and the huge cuts to the schools which were spread so unevenly have been left intact it is necessary to ask: why did the UFT leadership do so little to publicize the plight of schools like 218?

When the full scale of the cuts for the school year 2009-10 became clear a few weeks ago, the union should have been organizing protests outside every school in the city building up to an emergency rally outside City Hall. After initiating the 50,000 strong rally on March 5, they restricted themselves to writing letters to the newspapers and urging teachers to fax their public representatives.

The real position was revealed in a press statement by Randi Weingarten dated May 19:

“Although the school budgets issued by the school system today do not, by any means, amount to a full restoration of items and services on the chopping block, getting the cuts down to the 3-to-4 percent range in this tough economy is a huge improvement over the prospective budgets that amounted to a 7 percent cut for schools. We at the United Federation of Teachers and other advocates who worked tirelessly and fought so hard in Washington and Albany for funding to minimize the brunt of expected city cuts will continue to seek budget restorations from the City Council in the weeks ahead. But we are still pleased to see that the Mayor and the Department of Education have gone a long way to protect the classroom and maintain services for students in these difficult times.”

This is the logical conclusion of “shared sacrifice”; so much for opposing cuts to the most vulnerable!

Tom Crean, newly-elected chapter leader at IS 218

Teachers at IS 218, East New York Protest Cuts

On Friday June 12, between 7:45 and 8:30 am, over 50 teachers, parents and students rallied outside Sinnott Magnet School (IS 218) in East New York against the vicious $1.4 million cut in their school’s budget by the DoE. Despite the rainy weather it was a high energy protest. Teachers held signs that read “No More Budget Cuts” and chanted “They say cut back, we say fight back!” The protest was also attended by City Councilor Charles Barron.

Even taking into account declining enrollment at IS 218, $1.4 million represents a 10% cut to the school’s budget, far in excess of the 4.9% announced citywide. Twenty teachers, nearly a third of teaching staff are being excessed. The cut is so deep that it compromises the school’s instructional integrity with potentially grave consequences for student achievement. There is no money for after school programs, intervention for at-risk students or even basic school supplies. As the teachers said in a letter to Joel Klein, “This will literally rip the heart out of our school.”

It is a cruel irony that IS218 is being targeted for such a deep cut when it has shown enormous improvement on the state’s standardized tests Between 2006 and 2009, on the state ELA test, the proportion of IS 218 students who scored level 3 or 4 rose from 32.1% to 54.4% On the state math those scoring level 3 and 4 rose from 43.2% to 71.0% during the same three year period. During the 2006-7 school year the school received an A grade from the city which went down to a B last year. So if IS 218 is doing so well according to official criteria why is the DOE gutting it? Some teachers are concerned that this is possibly a step towards closing the school altogether.

It was pointed out by a speaker at the protest that some other schools faced massive cuts, such as the Boys and Girls High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant which faces a 16% cut or over $3.1 million. These attacks on education, are nothing short of criminal. The speaker went on to ask, “There are billions for the banks, why can't they bail out the schools?”

Q & A With a UFT CL

Hi Norm,
Q: How are you? I would like to know if you have heard from any other chapter leaders/teachers about how they are so disgusted with the union, DOE, and especially the administrators. I just received the chapter leader update and the union is asking us to have a discussion with our principal about the budget cuts so classrooms are protected. Doesn't the union realize, or should I say, want to realize, that the principals will do whatever they please, including budget cuts?

A: What is there to say? The union tries to maintain the fiction that it is functioning at the school level. If a principal is benign and has a sense of fairness, then there it does, but due to the principal and not the union. Since most principals are not benign, the UFT is a head without much of a body. But they issue these directives with a prayer attached.

How to Save Millions in Education in NYC Without Affecting the Classroom....

....in your dreams.

Let's sell the Tweed Courthouse out from under BloomKlein

Jane Hirschman from Time Out From Testing is circulating a letter (read it in full a Norms Notes where Jane explains each item in detail.)

UPDATE: Chaz reminds me that he had his own list of suggestions. Also check the comments for additions.

The Mayor is announcing his plan next week for city-wide budget cuts, including in public education. The current financial crisis affords us an opportunity to look at the mismanagement of our tax dollars.

• HIRING FREEZE ON THE DOE EMPLOYEES AT TWEED HEADQUARTERS

The number of DOE employees at Tweed Headquarters has increased by more than 500 in the last 5 years (from 1,832 in 2003 to 2,337 in 2008). That's a 28% increase! Currently, there are 14 job openings advertised on the DOE website, seven of which have salaries of $170,000 or more. We don't want additional CEOs from defunct Wall Street firms working for the DOE.

• CUT ARIS, AN 80 MILLION IBM COMPUTER SYSTEM USED TO TRACK OUR CHILDREN'S TEST SCORES

• ELIMINATE THE $80 MILLION MCGRAW-HILL "ACUITY" CONTRACT.

• END THE SCHOOL PROGRESS REPORTS.

• STOP THE K-2 STANDARDIZED TESTING PROGRAM

• END THE LEADERSHIP ACADEMY - $10 million a year

• CUT THE 2009 SCHOOL QUALITY REVIEW - $6.5 million

• CUT THE "THINK-LINK" COMPUTERIZED WAREHOUSE - $1 million

Feel free to add your own favorites.
I would add all merit pay programs and call for a public review of all private contracts and consultants. There is no excuse in the "no excuses" world of BloomKlein to cut one dime out of classroom services without looking at the enormous at the top.

Think they can get anything decent for the Tweed courthouse in today's real estate market? Could pay for a couple of new schools.

LITTLEST PROTESTORS “STORM” Tweed

I'm curious as to how this takes place during school hours. Are kids being pulled by the parents? Maybe it is an official school trip. It is hard to believe the teachers or admins can in any way be involved without repercussions. Yet, these cuts seem to have made some principals bolder in their criticisms. And, there could be bad pub for Tweed if they do retaliate.

LITTLEST PROTESTORS “STORM” DOE:

Public School Kids Barrage Steps of to Demand Klein Rescind Budget Cuts;

Experience Democracy in Action

WHO: NYC Public School Kids

WHAT: Rally, deliver protest letters and signed posters;

protest $450 Million NYC Public Schools Budget Cuts;

learn what it means to have their voices heard.

WHEN: Every school day in June until Chancellor Joel Klein

appears on the steps of the Tweed Courthouse to announce

full restoration of the DOE budget (see full schedule for week

one, below).

WHERE: Tweed Courthouse (52 Chambers Street, Manhattan)

WHY: Despite increased state allocations for NYC schools, Klein

has chopped NYC public school budgets already by $180

million this year. An additional cut of as much $450 million is

planned for next year.

WEEK ONE: Monday, June 9th – PS 75M students arrive at Tweed

Courthouse, 12:30

Tuesday, June 10th – Central Park East II –10:00

Wednesday, June 11th – TBA

Thursday, June 12th – Six Schools from District 2 – 12:30

Friday, June 13th – High School Kids Express Solidarity

Murrow/Stuyvesant – 4:00

Contact: Paula Seefeldt, PA Board, PS 87; kennapj@hotmail.com;
646-734-0182

Cynthia Wachtell, PA Board, PS 87; wachtell@yu.edu;

917-392-2486

http://www.kidsprotestproject.org/

Place Blame For School Cuts Where It’s Due

We have not been covering the budget cuts in NYC because there's been so much coverage elsewhere, especially on the NYC Parent blog and listserve.
Leonie Haimson writes (note her comment on the NY Times as MIA).

I want everyone to read the excellent editorial in the Queens Chronicle – far more on target than the NY Post or the Daily news– both of which have written intemperate, inaccurate and biased editorials about the budget cuts to schools, blaming the City council and the State Legislature respectively, instead of where the true responsibility clearly lies – on the shoulders of the mayor and the chancellor.

The Chronicle editorial is also far better than anything that the NY Times is likely to write on the subject. The Times editorial page, as usual, continues to be missing in action on this and nearly every other important issue that relates our schools in this city.

Place Blame For School Cuts Where It’s Due

Weingarten on Budget Cuts

This is worth reading if nothing for its conciliatory weakness. Do we have to review what so many of us said when the UFT cancelled last year's May 9 demo in exchange for promises we all said the mayor and Klein wouldn't keep? OK, now that you asked:

Except for a few instances, the wording is full of the kind of promises to consult, recommend, participate but contains little or no elements that bind the very people at Tweed who have engendered such distrust in the past.

Ednotes, April 19, 2007

Or this:

The May 9th demo scared the hell out of Bloomberg and would have made a national splash and focused attention on so many of the awful policies as a result of his control of the school system. In addition, it looks like the back of the coalition forming to stand up to him may have been broken. Divide and conquer, used to perfection. With the cooperation of the UFT.

Ed Notes April 20, 2007

Well, look what's back – the Coalition, running ads complaining about BloomKlein not keeping their promise (Today the city broke that promise to kids. - sniff, sniff). Just dumping money down a hole to make it look like something is being done.

Are you sick of the whining and complaining from the people at the UFT who cave at the nearest opportunity? If you actually stood up, how could you be looked at as a rational educational spokesperson by the people you want to impress - not the teachers of NYC mind you - but the ed reform pundits, the press and the politicians.

Take this one: "The Mayor rightly understood it was important to keep his $400 promise to homeowners and to roll some of the surplus as a cushion."

WHAT! She says he rightly understood? Wrong!

She should have hammered him for choosing to give people a measly $400 bucks while screwing the schools. You see, the UFT never wants to talk about taxes, especially at the corporate and corrupt real estate level, feeling it will lose support. But the money has to come from somewhere. How about asking for a chunk of the money going to Bear Stearns?

UFT President Randi Weingarten’s Statement on Mayor’s Executive Budget
Last year the Mayor and the City Council matched the historic commitment that the state made to reverse the chronic, multi-generational underfunding of the New York City public schools by agreeing to $2.2 billion increase over 4 years. Today the city broke that promise to kids. Today the city reversed the approximately $450 million it had promised in the 2008 adopted budget.

The governor and state legislature—despite facing daunting budget deficits actually increased their commitment to kids when the state appropriated $600 million in new funds for NYC public schools. Compare that to the city’s reduction of promised funds in the wake of the substantial multi-billion dollar surplus.

The Mayor rightly understood it was important to keep his $400 promise to homeowners and to roll some of the surplus as a cushion. He should have given the same consideration to the importance of the 4-year promise the city made to our children. He has broken that promise, and we have five weeks to work with him and the City Council to reverse it.

$220 Billion for Bail Out, Zilch for Schools

The Ed "reformers" always talk about accountability in terms of "no excuses" for poverty, large class sizes, etc. They are quick to support the billions for bailouts but say they can't waste money on lowering class size because they can't guarantee a quality teacher in every class.

How about not allowing a bank to open until there's a quality banker in each and every one? Are any of teh characters who led us into this crisis truly suffering? Poor guy at BearsStern- wealth fell to 12 million.

Under whose watch were laws passed during the depression to prevent the kinds of abuses we are seeing today repealed? I believe Mr. Clinton. And of course, followed up by the massive giveaway of the institutional protections to corporate interests.

If we had unions that stood up and exposed the practices that end up in bailouts ( Chrysler, savings and loan - one a decade) instead of collaborating, it all wouldn't be as easy for them.

If the UFT/AFT defended its members instead of seeking ways to cooperate in the dismantling of public education, they could have played a role in exposing some of the shams. But how can the UFT play at that level when they can't even defend teachers in their schools?

Not a word from the union about how 200 billion can be found for a bailout or how 2 trillion magically appears for a war. Instead of pointing out where the money is, the UFT/AFT buys into the phony accountability/reform movement and calls for tinkering at the edges.

We will see the UFT lead a rally at Tweed tomorrow begging for a few crumbs to be put back on the table while the Fed throws billions on the table for the financial industry.

The rally to restore the budget cuts would have a much better chance of succeeding if it were held at the Federal Reserve.

Rally to Oppose Budget Cuts or Another Sell-out?

Excuse my cynicism, but is this the same coalition that sold us out in the Keep the Public in Public Education Coalition?
- a NYC parent on the nyceducationnews listserve.

My God! can't we get a weekend off? Things keep popping up like a faulty toaster. I'm trying to get a handle around different coalitions forming to fight the budget cuts, competing rallies at Tweed, and all kinds of other goodies. As usual, there is an historical context to everything and that's the place we always go so as not to leave you guys out there in the cold.

I'm on deadline for a short story I'm writing for my fiction writing group so I may not get to all of it, but check back for updates to this post (I'll leave a permanent link on top corner on the right hand side and add to this post as info comes in.)

For starters here's a time line, all of which has been covered in Ed Notes (I'll get links up later):

Feb. 28, 2007: Coalition of groups led by UFT holds extraordinary rally in Manhattan. Decides to hold a rally in May to protest the policies of BloomKlein.

April, 2007: Most of the groups make a deal with the Mayor and agree to call off the rally.
(Note: aspects of The Deal are violated, in particular class size agreements. Other parts of the deal, possibly the Lead Teacher - see our recent post on this angle a few days ago - will be violated in the budget cuts announced in January.)

May, 2007: Manhattan High School chapter leaders vote 19-1 to call for the rally to be reinstated because Twee cannot be trusted. They bring the issue to the May Del. Ass. UFT Leadership opposes and they lose by a large margin.

Jan./Feb. 2008: Bloomberg announces budget cuts which Klein admits Tweed knew about since November but never told the principals. They are more pissed off than just about anyone. Empowered, indeed!

Feb. 6, 2008: At the UFT Delegate Assembly, a UFT Resolution on budget cuts calls for the UFT to participate in the reinstitution of the coalition to fight the cuts and announces a meeting will be held the next day. Randi asks if people will support a rally if they decide to call one. The audience, already numb from her President's report, with some saying they would prefer water boarding, nods/mumbles assent.

Jonathan Lessuck from Progressive Labor Party (PLP) offers a series of amendments to strengthen the resolution and calls for a rally to be held on Feb. 14. Another PL speaker talks about how important it is to bring students into play. (This is a common PLP theme, something I'm not always comfortable with, but more on that another time.) I should point out that some PLP members also work with ICE but while ICE agrees with some PLP positions, it does not endorse all the actions of PLP. ICE had no involvement in the PLP amendments.

Randi and Unity Caucus speakers oppose the amendments, mostly on the Feb. 14 date, saying it is too short a time. Lessuck says the date is not crucial but doesn't make a formal amendment change. Randi takes a vote with the Feb. 14 date included, to PLP's chagrin. She shrugs and smiles a disingenuous Cheshire Cat Smile.

Feb. 7, 2007: The coalition meets with 150 people present and there are reports that it is very successful. A decision is made to hold a rally in mid-March,prompting the comment on cynicism from the parent that we lead this post off with. Reporters are banned but Elizabeth Green posts the most comprehensive story for the NY Sun. Read it here: http://www.nysun.com/article/70970

Feb. 10 (Sunday): The Coalition will hold a press conference on the steps of City Hall at 12:30. I'm going to my niece's daughter's baby naming in Philadelphia, so if anyone has a report send it along.

In the meantime, the Feb. 14 date has resurfaced for a rally at Tweed in this email:

Hey Folks,

You don't need to be told how outrageous these budget cuts are.
What are we going to do about it?!?!?!?

Next Thursday, February 14th at 4:00 PM we are taking it to the steps of Tweed.

BRING PARENTS, STUDENTS, TEACHERS, PRINCIPALS!

We demand an immediate return of the money taken from school budgets for this year and next.

Bloomberg needs money? Eliminate the $400 million in homeowner rebates.
We demand economic justice and democracy in our school system!

Tell king Bloomberg: Give back what you are stealing from our kids!
We want as many parents and students as possible to come on Thursday and be heard. Talk to your students about it, get them to organize and bring their parents.
My third graders are already MAD!

Sponsors so far include:
State Senator Eric Adams, Time Out From Testing, NYCORE, district 15 CEC, PS 24 Teachers for Equity in Education.

A group of students from Brooklyn called Students Against DOE Budget Cuts are leading the way with the support of the groups above. They are organizing a march on Tweed for Thursday, Feb. 14th and need all of our support.

LET'S MAKE THIS BIG!!!
Sam Coleman
PS 24
sam_p_coleman@yahoo.com

Should they back off and support the March rally? Or are they correct to mistrust the coalition which in April backed off a tremendous opportunity and killed the momentum for the May rally? Will Randi Weingarten (who everyone knows is the mover and shaker behind this coalition) play Let's Make a Deal again if Bloomberg puts 10 cents on the table?

You can follow this soap opera (Call it the Coalition of Our Lives) on the ednotes blog. I will try to attend the rally on Thursday as part of my Valentine Day celebration (can you spell "divorce?") and get some pictures.