[This op-ed originally appeared in City & State on March 6, 2015.]

Gov. Andrew Cuomo may have billionaire friends, but we have something his money can never buy: people power.

Our union is 200,000-strong and growing, and we have the support of tens of thousands more parents, students and community members who believe that all children have the right to a high-quality public education.

Thousands of educators have now invited Cuomo to visit their schools and see what real education is all about — but he hasn’t come. Instead, he has put forward a list of ideas that will damage our schools, including expanding a charter school sector that doesn’t serve the neediest kids and also witch-hunting our teachers.

Meanwhile, he has been ignoring the real issue – the fact that New York State is a leader in inequality in public school spending, despite a court decision and a legislative agreement to bring that spending up to standard.

The new tool we developed with the Alliance for Quality Education, www.howmuchnysrobbed.nyc, allows teachers and parents to look up how much money their individual school would receive if Gov. Cuomo followed the law and released the $2.5 billion he owes New York City public schools as part of the resolution of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit.

Some teachers have said they would buy textbooks or art supplies or whiteboards and markers. Others want new books for their classroom libraries. Still others would use their schools’ money to put a computer in each classroom, to revive canceled after-school programs or to implement programs for parents and the surrounding community.

At PS 114 in the Bronx, owed $2.28 million, they would use the money to hire more staff and reduce class size, while at the borough’s Crotona International HS, owed $650,000, they would recruit music and art teachers.

These are real needs — expressed by real educators.

Our message is simple: The governor must fairly fund our city’s and state’s public schools. Everything else is a distraction.

Our campaign to fight Cuomo is one of the largest grassroots mobilizations the UFT has ever undertaken. Thousands of teachers and parents have attended 11 forums across the five boroughs to rally, strategize and discuss how Cuomo’s policies would hurt our kids. Hundreds of parent leaders have gathered in meetings at union headquarters to plan coordinated actions with teachers.

On Valentine’s Day, we sent parents and teachers to Albany to speak with elected officials and tell them that Cuomo’s attacks on schools are breaking our children’s hearts. And on March 4, another 1,100 traveled to Albany for our annual Lobby Day with a clear and unequivocal message: State lawmakers must stand up to the governor.

We have also distributed more than 40,000 postcards for educators and parents to send to the governor and legislators. On social media, teachers have sent 85,000 tweets using the hashtag #AllKidsNeed to let the governor know what their students need to succeed and 27,000 tweets using the hashtag #InviteCuomo to invite him to come to their classrooms and see for himself.

Teachers and parents know that after a dozen years of Mayor Bloomberg’s corporate education “reforms,” we finally have the chance to move our schools forward. We cannot let Gov. Cuomo push us backward.