More than 10,000 teachers, principals, parents, students and elected officials braved a soaking rain on March 19 to rally outside City Hall to protest $800 million in budget cuts threatening New York City public schools.
Stretching from a stage at the foot of City Hall Park to three blocks north of Chambers Street was a sea of waterproof green painter hats worn by the fired-up protesters. On the hats were the words “Keep the Promises,” the name of the coalition that organized the rally and a reference to the demand that city and state government rescind current budget cuts and restore promised funds for the coming school year.
The rain, sometimes blowing horizontally, only made those in the crowd more angry as they cheered speaker after speaker who charged that the cuts would doom efforts to win smaller class sizes and put the quality of schools at risk.
Teachers Joielynn Rugg and Laura Rainer were among the 44 educators and parents from Staten Island’s PS 36 who attended the rally.
Looking out at the huge turnout from the stage, UFT President Randi Weingarten noted how rain wasn’t the only thing coming down hard on City Hall. “The streets today are flooded with caring people, because everybody who is here in this rain understands what this is all about,” Weingarten said. “As much as was lost with the January cutbacks, the September cuts will be six times worse.”
Weingarten praised a plan by the state Assembly that would restore every dollar ex-governor Eliot Spitzer cut from his proposed budget before his March 17 resignation. It would also impose a 1 percent surcharge on all incomes of state residents and nonresidents working in the state who earn more than $1 million annually, a plan Weingarten said that was both needed and fair. The Assembly bill also mandates that Mayor Michael Bloomberg restore all his planned cuts, she said, “because kids don’t get do overs.”
State AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes agreed that with the economy tanking, “these are tough times, but labor unions are used to tough times, and I promise we will stand with you and help get them to do the things they promised they’d do.”
Ernest Logan, president of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, asked, “Why is it that when things get tough, they cut the schools? We know that schools are the safety net for when we are in trouble.”
City Council Education Committee Chair Robert Jackson (at podium) and the Council members flanking him pledged to “keep the promises” and fight the education cuts.
Added student Giselle Lopez, “We can’t get to tomorrow if we can’t deal with today.”
Brooklyn Councilman Dominic Recchia was just one of a number of speakers who linked the fiscal shortchanging of schools to the protracted Iraq War — which, ironically, had started exactly five years ago to the day.
“President Bush must end the war now,” Recchia said, “and put the money into education.”
Dozens of City Council members approached the microphone one by one to pledge their support to the coalition, while City Councilman Bill de Blasio announced that he had sponsored a resolution demanding that the mayor restore the cuts. The resolution has 42 cosigners.
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer criticized Chancellor Joel Klein for defending the mayor’s cuts instead of school needs.
“You should be leading the fight in Albany,” not defending the cuts, Stringer said.
Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum said that the lack of Department of Education transparency — the capacity for elected officials and the public to see how the department spends its funding — was so extreme that even her office couldn’t get information.
Gotbaum said she was told by a DOE official that information she requested on whether there were cuts to the central administration that paralleled cuts to the schools, as the DOE claimed, was “on the Web site.”
“We found they made no cuts at Tweed at all,” Gotbaum said.
William McDonald, chair of the Chancellor’s Parents Advisory Council, asked, “Whose money? Whose schools?” and he warned elected officials: “If you’re not going to keep your promises, you’re not going to keep your jobs.”
Billy Easton of the Alliance for Quality Education closed the rally by urging demonstrators to call legislators before the April 1 state budget deadline and tell them “to fight for the Assembly budget bill.” He also announced that there are daily bus rides to Albany for lobbying through March 31. [Go to www.ourkidscantwait.org for more information.]
Standing soaked in the downpour, Brenda Major, delegate at PS 173 in the Bronx, said the rain couldn’t keep her and her colleagues from demonstrating. “As my father says, we’re all Baptists,” she said.
Equally drenched was parent David Quintana of Ozone Park, a member of the Chancellor’s Parents Advisory Council, who said he was disgusted with the chancellor. “Joel Klein should be leading this, instead of hiding in Tweed,” he said.
The rain-soaked crowd of educators, parents and students stretched along the Broadway side of City Hall Park all the way north past Chambers Street.
