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UFT joins statewide protests against cuts

by Michael Hirsch

Mar 18, 2010 4:18 PM

[For additional photos, go to the Break the Pencil: Rally Against Education Cut gallery]

At Manhattan’s Murry Bergtraum HS, in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, more than 200 teachers, students, and union and community leaders assembled to call on the state Legislature to reject the governor’s proposed $1.4 billion in school aid cuts statewide — as much as $600 million in cuts to New York City — as an attack on educational quality and a precursor to mass layoffs.

As at eight other press conferences, town hall meetings and protests across New York City, and countless others around the state [see New York Teacher State Edition for additional coverage], supporters of public schools spelled out what the cuts would mean in the classroom — and broke pencils to symbolize broken promises to kids.

At the Bergtraum rally, with the high school’s sheathed exterior making it look as if the building were in mourning, a constant theme was that the wealthiest New Yorkers could weather the fiscal crisis for their children, leaving the city’s poorest children to carry the burden.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew, who led a boisterous chant of “Save Our Schools,” insisted that the state Legislature reject the governor’s school cuts and find better ways to shrink the state’s yawning deficit.

“Don’t forfeit children’s futures just because you can’t figure out what to do,” Mulgrew said. “People concentrate on failing schools, but there are a lot of great schools in New York doing a lot of great work that we can’t let slip backward now.”

Mulgrew said education needs to remain a top priority despite the current economic difficulties.

“We need to protect our children’s future and preserve the quality education every child deserves. This is the crossroads time,” Mulgrew said.

Zakiyah Ansari of the Alliance for Quality Education, in emceeing the event, said that the proposed budget would cut $11,677 on average from classrooms across this state. “Many of our children are already in schools with overcrowded classrooms, without textbooks, art programs or tutoring programs,” Ansari said.

Ansari vowed that parents would fight to stop the cuts. “We must provide the funding necessary for real and urgent school reform,” she said. “Our children deserve the best education possible and the first step is funding our schools, not cutting them.”

Social studies teacher John Elfrank, Bergtraum’s UFT chapter leader and a 20-year teaching veteran at a school that at present has 134 oversized classes, painted a stark picture.

“The cuts mean no paper, crowded hallways and more fights,” he said. “It means not enough desks. It means printers and copiers broken and that won’t be fixed.”

He added that his school had seen problems before, “but this one is especially difficult because we now have a higher-needs population,” the outcome of the city’s efforts to close what it considers failing schools and relocate students.

Addressing the state Legislature, Elfrank said, “You can’t move education reform without adequate funding.”

Also speaking at the rally was Council of School Supervisors and Administrators President Ernest Logan, the Campaign for Fiscal Equity’s Shirley Feinberg and UFT Manhattan High Schools Representative Tom Dromgoole.

UFT Queens Borough Representative Rona Freiser led a protest outside of IS 125 in District 24. Chapter Leader Judy Glazer and members from the school turned out in force to speak against the cuts.

Other city protests were held at MS 54, the Booker T. Washington School in Manhattan, PS 11 in the Bronx, IS 318 Eugenio Maria De Hostos, PS 13 Roberto Clemente and IS 171 Abraham Lincoln in Brooklyn. Rallies were also took place at PS 45 on Staten Island and at the offices of Make the Road NY in Queens.