May 15, 2023 Save the date! Our annual Parent Action Conference co-sponsored with NYC Kids PAC will be held Saturday June 10, starting at 9:30 AM at Seward Park Complex downtown at 350 Grand Street. There will be lots of fascinating panel discussions and workshops on a variety of topics, as well as breakfast and […]
April 25, 2023 It’s crunch time for the budget. We are now getting word from insiders that a budget deal may be finalized soon that would include allowing 22 more “zombie” charter schools above the cap, the number of charters which closed or never opened, which could turn into 66 more charters, due to a […]
Corrected link to Feb. capital plan and Michelle Joseph’s email address below. I have also added the email of another PEP member Lily Chan. Unfortunately, eight out of 23 PEP members still do not have their email addresses posted on the DOE website. Please also speak at tomorrow’s PEP meeting if you can about the […]
April 12, 2023 Dear all: The state budget is now nearly two weeks overdue, with negotiations showing little evident progress so far. As a result, Gov. Hochul’s controversial proposal to raise the NYC charter cap is still up in the air, that the city says would cost another $1.3 billion, over and above $3 billion […]
March 17, 2023 Hearings were held on Wed. before the Education committee of the City Council on the DOE preliminary budget and the Feb. amendment to the capital plan. During the hearings, the DOE admitted that they plan to cut school budgets even more next year, though they wouldn’t say by how much. Instead, the […]
Our education budget priorities for next year, FY 2024, along with Alliance for Quality Education, NYC Kids PAC and the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council are here and below . They are focused on the need for schools to have their budgets restored and the cuts made this year reversed, and for the capital plan for […]
March 5, 2023 The new proposed amendment to the 5-year capital plan for schools was recently released; you can check it out here. Compared to the capital plan adopted in June 2021, the DOE/SCA wants to cut the number of new school seats to be built by 38% — or over 21,000. This is inconceivable […]
Updated March 5, 2023 You can send an email to your Legislators here, in opposition to Gov. Hochul’s proposal to lift the NYC charter cap and that instead the charter law needs to be strengthened, to eliminate NYC’s onerous and unfair obligation to provide all new and expanding charter schools with space, remove loopholes which […]
Feb. 15, 2023 1. Last week, state education budget hearings were held, where many groups, advocates and organizations inveighed against the Governor’s proposal to expand the cap on charter schools. Chancellor Banks also testified and was non-committal, saying it was up to the Mayor weigh in, But under questioning from Sen. Liz Krueger, he admitted […]
Feb. 12, 2023 Below see Class Size Matters’ testimony from last week’s State education budget hearings, which describe some of the many reasons we are extremely concerned that the DOE is not prepared to meet the class size limits in the new state law, especially in the out years, given repeated cuts to school budgets, […]
Sign here to urge NYC to implement a real, multi-year strategy to lower class size, as the law intends, without exempting up to half or more of all students.
Talk out of School radio show and podcast airs Sunday night at 7 PM on WBAI 99.5 FM or online at www.wbai.org when Leonie Haimson and Daniel Alicea interview guests and discuss issues affecting public schools in NYC, the state level and nationally. You can stream or subscribe to the podcast here; or at iTunes, Spotify or Google.
We held our annual Skinny award dinner Wed. June 28, 2023, honoring Rep. Jamaal Bowman, former Bronx principal and now a progressive trailblazer who is fighting in Congress to protect and improve our public schools. More photos on Facebook .
