Tag: Public Ed

Let’s Have a Rally!

The testing insanity has to STOP and every one of us needs to join together to make that happen….   Comsewogue Superintendent Joe Rella and the PJSTA invite you and everyone you know to a rally next Saturday to make our voices heard… Right now Engelbright will be there and we are working to get other State and Federal Representatives to the rally too…. Please post this on your facebook pages, distribute it to your members, Superintendents, school boards and every friend of public education you know… Click below to read the letter Dr. Rella wrote to our local leaders and community members…. . Ask your Superintendent to do the same….

Dr. Rella’s Letter to Ken LaValle

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Know Your Friends… and Your Enemies!

I hope that everybody is enjoying their summer so far.  Whether you have been traveling, laying on the beach, working at another job, or just enjoying some extra family time it can be nice to have a few weeks away from the stresses of your day job.  With that idea in mind, while we are away from school the powers that be continue to look for new ways to disrespect and destroy our profession.  At the same time we have a growing number of friends looking to fight back against those powers that be.  Naturally those allies of ours will need as much help as they can get and we should be willing to provide just that.  If you are new to following this fight… or if you are not new but find the sheer volume of it overwhelming, don’t worry, thepjsta.org is here to help!

Beginning this summer, as our blog celebrates it’s first anniversary and enters it’s second year of existence, we will be looking for ways to improve how this site can benefit our members.  One of those ways will be through two new special series that we will be writing.  The purpose of these series, which will pop up throughout the year, will be to educate you on who are your friends and who are your enemies.  By this we mean who are the forces fighting to protect public education and who are the forces attempting to destroy it.  These two series will be appropriately titled, “Know Your Friends” (KYF) and “Know Your Enemies” (KYE).  We will cover people and organizations such as Bill Gates, Diane Ravitch, Michelle Rhee, Barack Obama, Arnie Duncan, Karen Lewis, Corey Booker, Teach for America, Badass Teachers Association, and many, many more.

Some of you may be surprised at who is a friend of public ed and who is not.  Understand that the lines drawn over public ed do not correlate with political party lines.  They often make for strange bed fellows as well.  However, going forward, it is essential for us to educate ourselves, know the issues, stand up for ourselves, attend rallies, engage in civil disobedience when necessary, and make our voices heard at the polls.

The Network for Public Education

Today was an exciting day for all friends of public education who have had a chance to witness The Network for Public Education.  This organization was launched by many of public educations strongest advocates, including Diane Ravitch, Leonie Haimson, Anthony Cody, and several others.  You can read Coday’s article on it here.  The organization describes itself as in this way…

The Network for Public Education is an advocacy group whose goal is to fight to protect, preserve and strengthen our public school system, an essential institution in a democratic society. Our mission is to protect, preserve, promote, and strengthen public schools and the education of current and future generations of students. We will accomplish this by networking groups and organizations focused on similar goals in states and districts throughout the nation, share information about what works and what doesn’t work in public education, and endorse and rate candidates for office based on our principles and goals. More specifically, we will support candidates who oppose high-stakes testing, mass school closures, the privatization of our public schools and the outsourcing of its core functions to for-profit corporations, and we will support candidates who work for evidence-based reforms that will improve our schools and the education of our nation’s children.

You can register to become a member of The Network for Public Education here.

Thursday’s Educate NY Now Rally

This past Thursday, October 25th, the PJSTA hosted an Educate NY Now! rally at JFK Middle School.  The rally, one of 14 that were held across Long Island on Thursday, featured an estimated 300 people who rallied against the tax cap, unfunded mandates, and excessive standardized testing.  The audience was made up of teachers, administrators, parents, and students from not just Comsewogue, but many surrounding school districts as well.  Locals from Miller Place, Port Jefferson, Rocky Point, Mount Sinai, and Half Hollow Hills joined the PJSTA at the rally.  Port Jefferson alone had 50 members show up, nearly half of their local’s total membership.  The rally’s speakers were:

  • Richard Haas, organizer for Educate NY Now!
  • Dr. Joseph Rella, Comsewogue School District superintendent
  • Dr. Ken Bossert, Port Jefferson School District superintendent
  • Joseph Gordon, 6th grader, JFK Middle School
  • Maria Navarro, President of CSEA Local 870
  • Ali Gordon, Trustee, Comsewogue Board of Education
  • Roger Clayman, Executive Director, Long Island Federation of Labor

Thank you to all PJSTA members who showed up.  A lot of people made a big effort, staying several hours later than normal, coming back to work after being home, or coming back to work with their own children.  The effort of those members is deeply appreciated.  If you were unable to make it, surely you are pondering how you can help in the following months.

To read more about the rallies across the Island that day, check out Betsy Sandberg’s blog here.

On December 5th there will be a bus to Albany to stand up for our schools and demand quality education from our elected officials.  The bus will be sponsored by Educate NY Now! To reserve your seat on the bus please contact Beth Dimino.

A special thank you to PJSTA’s first vice president Beth Shapiro for putting together the slide show below…