It’s like déjà vu, all over again

It would seem unlikely that this Met fan would cite the famous “déjà vu” quote of a Yankee Hall of Famer, but after all, Yogi Berra did lead the 1973 Mets to the World Series as their manager. And since many of our teachers were not even born, 1973 seems like ancient history, as does the fiscal crisis that occurred two years later.

The spring of 1975 was an exciting time for this third-year teacher at IS 218 in District 19. Most of my colleagues were of a similar age and we were starting to feel comfortable in learning the craft and nuances of teaching.

The administration was, for the most part, nurturing. And the kids, well, they were kids. We felt this was our home and would be for a long time.

My wife (also a teacher at the school) and I felt secure enough to trade in our Volkswagen for a new one and to purchase a house. We, as well as the other teachers, were focused on our classes and our lives — and looming city budget problems were not on our horizon.

When we returned in September, we started to hear terms that were unfamiliar to us: excessing and layoffs. Our classes grew larger as the principal cut programs. Teachers cried as they received “pink slips,” large group instruction was the only way to cover classes, uncertainty was all around and chaos prevailed.

And this was only the beginning. By the fall, more than 15,000 of us were laid off (10,000 never returned), class size increased dramatically, the school day was shortened, art, music and guidance were eliminated, supplies and textbooks were nonexistent and building maintenance was ignored.

Yes, that was a generation ago, but the news out of Albany paints an eerily similar picture today. The governor and the State Senate have proposed education budget cuts of $1.4 billion for next year. This translates to an average of $400,000 per city school.

You can figure out the damage that this will do to our schools. It is said that we lost a generation of children as a result of the 1975 fiscal crisis and this will happen again if we allow these cuts to occur.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew stated that “these proposals are a disaster in the making for the children in New York’s public schools. We can’t ask kids to pay the price for the mistakes that adults have made with our economy. There are ways to save money; there are ways to raise revenue. We have to look at everything. The kids deserve better than this.”

The history of 1975 shows that it was the UFT’s responsible commitment (by purchasing city bonds) that saved the city from bankruptcy.

We must remember that we are the union — each one of us. We need you to fax and call your legislators. Please check the Alert Action box on our Web site, www.uft.org, for more information. We will need you to talk to parents, attend union meetings and, if necessary, make sure you’re at any rally that’s called. Act as if your future depends on it, because it does.

Yogi also said that “it ain’t over till it’s over.”