PARENTS, TEACHERS, GRASSROOTS UNITE AGAINST FLAT FUND! June 8, 2006
by Bob Witanek
http://STudentADvocate-NJ.org 908-881-5275
advocate@studentadvocate-nj.org
They arrived by bus, train and motor vehicle. Mostly coming from Newark,
Paterson and other Essex County cities, around 500 parents, students, teachers,
advocates and education workers filled the courtyard near the Statehouse Annex
entrance. They represented parents and other grassroots groups including the
Secondary Parents Council of Newark, Newark Parents Association, Association for
Community Empowerment, Peoples Organization for Progress, a group whose acronym
is BROTHER and many others. Unions represented included the Newark Teachers
Union (AFT), the NJ Education Association and the Service Employees
International Union (custodial and other staff). Also represented was The NJ
Student Advocacy Union (http://StudentAdvocate-NJ.org
). If folks know of other groups that were participating, please share. Forces
were joined in a rally with the theme of “Don’t let Trenton balance the budget
at the expense of students.”
For the next two hours, from 10 am until noon on Thursday morning, June 8, the courtyard resounded with the spirited cry of protest against the heartless “flat fund” plan of the current Corzine administration which imposes on Abbott districts, the need to function on a budget that is not $1 more than the prior year in spite of energy costs doubling, tuition increases, other increases in service costs, supplies already lacking and demands on districts to comply with under funded mandates like NCLB, IDEA and others as well as to eliminate or diminish the achievement gap. The fiction that such is possible is being promulgated by an administration that was brought to power by the voting power of the very districts that it is now assaulting with such policies.
The rally was officiated by Wilhelmina Holder of the Secondary Parents Council of Newark. It featured around two dozen speakers including parents, teachers, union representatives and numerous state assembly and senators and at least one Newark Council member (Ras Baraka). Other speakers included: JoAnne Miller, Secondary Parents, parents from Clinton Avenue School Newark, Assemblyman Craig Stanley, Oadline Truitt, and Sheila Oliver, SEIU Local 617 President Rahaman Muhammad, as well as Kathleen Witcher, Irvington Branch NAACP, Judy Diggs, District PTA Leader, Newark, Walia representing students from Paterson, David Sciarra, attorney for the Education Law Center, and the President of the NJ Education Association and the President of the Newark Teachers Union, Joe DelGrosso. (I will try to get a complete list of speakers for a follow up report.) Throughout the day, the crowd broke into thunderous chants of “No Cuts” that echoed off the walls surrounding 3 sides of the courtyard.
For The NJ Student Advocacy Union’s part, we distributed about 500 issues of our NJ Student Advocate newspaper, mostly to rally participants but also to legislative staff, some state representatives, lobbyists and other visitors to the Statehouse. We collected 100 signed letters opposing flat funding of Abbott districts, changes to discipline provisions in NJ special education code, opposing elimination of stay put provisions and calling for emergency action to eliminate racial disparities in NJ special education. These letters will be provided to the Governor’s office, the State Board of Education and the NJ Department of Education. To draft your own letter, follow this link, modify it to your liking and send it in according to the recipient information at the bottom of the letter:
http://studentadvocate-nj.org/June8Letter.doc (MS WORD)
Since I was working the crowd distributing the newspapers and collecting signed letters (congrats go out to Kathleen Pennell for work in this regard as well) I was unable to get a good hearing of the presentations of the other speakers. I did get a sense that I was with a crowd that means business though as its strong collective and unified responses to the statements of speakers as well as breaking into chants recurred throughout the event.
Channel 12 and at least one other television news crew was on the ground as well as many print journalists. I do not know which papers they represented.
I know that this report does not fully represent everything that occurred today. I am sharing information according to what I was able to take in as I distributed papers and gathered letters. This report is not meant as a comprehensive blow by blow of the event and it is obviously from my own perspective. I encourage others to also share their perspectives and recollections about the event. While the media will give some coverage to the event, our recollections can be valuable in helping to create a climate conducive to greater levels of active and collective engagement around these education questions.
For my part, I had an opportunity to offer a brief solidarity message. The following is a rough paraphrase of the presentation I made at the demonstration today. I did not work from a prepared text and am writing the following from memory. It is entirely possible that my memory has embellished it some:
“Education is the heartbeat of this society. If you flat fund education it is a flat line for that heart beat. And we all know what that means. Flat funding education will mean that education ends up flat broke. . . . or just plain broke. For some students, they will end up laid out flat on a slab. Or laying on a flat wooden board at the local police station.
Do we want our grandchildren and great grandchildren to be out here marching for Abbott years from now? Crowd answers: NO!
We need a solution to Abbott now! Not a year from now or 6 months from now. No more delays! Immediate resolution!
We need to demand the appointment of an independent prosecutor to conduct a full scale investigation of SCC. What happened to the billions? The investigation needs to be thorough and lead to indictments of anyone who stole or committed fraud. Leave no stone unturned. We are out here marching for millions and they might have stole billions.
Our organization, The NJ Student Advocacy Union, while we have focused thus far on issues in special education, we recognize the connections to the issues of funding of education in urban and rural districts. There should be more special education parents here today.
We have been struggling to improve the implementation of changes to special education code in NJ. We recently held two demonstrations outside the Department of Education. We have kept front and center, our commitment to the demand for “emergency action to end racial disparities in special education.”
Some of the issues we are addressing concern discipline measures. NJ is currently making changes that will make it easier to suspend and expel children with disabilities from public schools. Across the board there are racial disparities in special education and one such area is in who gets suspended or expelled.
An African American or Latino student with disabilities has a much greater probability of getting suspended or expelled from NJ public schools than a Caucasian child with disabilities. They are more likely to be classified as emotionally disturbed or defiance disorder, classifications that are less likely to result in speech and language services being provided. And they are more likely to be sent to an out of district placement in a cheaper county school than a more expensive private school.
We are circulating a letter today that opposes the flat funding proposal of this administration and at the same time opposes the changes to discipline code that will make it easier to suspend and expel children with disabilities and thus likely exacerbate these racial disparities. The letter also calls for emergency action to eliminate racial disparitities in special education. Please consider signing the letter.
The bottom line is, with this flat funding issue, if the needs of regular education students are not being met, then you know that the needs of special education students will not be met.
I want to finish off with a proposal. It is now June and we have a decent turn out today – although it is mostly Newark, Paterson, Essex County districts. In the summer months it is almost impossible to mobilize large numbers. Let’s pick a date in the fall and begin to plan now. Let’s mobilize all the districts across the state, and the special education parents. Let’s mobilize 10s of thousands and surround this building! That will get our message across.
And finally, there are political forces who have learned to take votes for granted based upon traditional voting patterns. It makes them think they can get away with disregarding us. When it comes to elections, we need to begin to think outside the box. We need to make it clear to the powers that be that if you turn your back on education, we will turn our backs on you!”
I have been circulating with the newspaper of our organization, The NJ Student Advocate. If you haven’t gotten your copy, please see me.”
My presentation was well received and many listeners sought out copies of the newspaper once I was through.
While
the event was a good show of strength and generally uplifting, the tremendous
task before us is to create a huge groundswell – a much larger outcry.
Hopefully, a future showings of greater unity can be organized as well as an
ongoing grassroots campaign that asserts unrelenting pressure on every vestige
of power that has anything at all to do with the outcome of these education
funding questions.
Meanwhile, get your letters in to the following addresses:
Letters can be e-mailed to
Janellen.Duffy@gov.state.nj.us (Corzine), Lucille.davy@doe.state.nj.us
and
comments6A14@doe.state.nj.us , faxed to (609) 633-0267 and mailed to State
Board Office Riverview Executive Plaza, Building 100, P.O. Box 500, Trenton, NJ
08625-0500.
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