Why We Care

Governor Cuomo has declared war on New York’s public schools and is on the record claiming that he is going to going to “break” them (Daily News 10/24/14).

Children are not factory products. One size fits all curricula that ‘drill and kill’ ELA and Math at the expense of arts, social studies and science are bad for learning and bad for kids.

Bumping up teacher evaluations to 50% based on state test results means more teaching to the test. Bringing in outside evaluators to do teachers observations is a waste of time, tax dollars and robs schools and communities of local decision-making and autonomy.

State aid to schools is distributed unfairly. The GAP Elimination Adjustment amounts to parasitism on small rural and poor schools.

Legislators are being held hostage to Cuomo’s demands. Money for funding districts is tied to compliance with his program.

Merit pay incentivized teaching to the test, punishes teachers who have students who are poor, English language learners or who have special needs, and creates tension and negativity in schools.