Our board has written several letters of advocacy since the pandemic started and, through our PR committee, we have discussed how to increase their reach. We recognize the role of NYSSBA (and in our area LHEC) to advocate for us but we were also thinking how powerful it would be to have a large number of New York State School Boards sign on personally to letters. I have posted an example from earlier here. We are currently working on letters about supporting districts financially to do COVID testing and also transportation aid reimbursement. Please let me know if there is any interest in this.
Last week, Governor Cuomo made several key announcements about his “Reimagine NY” initiative. Prioritizing invitations to powerful, unelected billionaires with a history of failed experiments in public education and deeply complicated relationships with companies that stand to profit from a larger investment in technology, Cuomo announced that he would be collaborating with Bill Gates and Erik Schmidt while declining to invite a single person from the K-12 public education community. Rather than creating a path forward to serve our students, this move shuts out the voices of those who have first-hand experience with the successes and shortcomings of distance learning and sets this process up for failure.
The responses from some of those intimately involved in New York's education system, but left out of the “Reimagine NY” process, were less than positive:
“If we want to reimagine education, let’s start with addressing the need for social workers, mental health counselors, school nurses, enriching arts courses, advanced courses and smaller class sizes in school districts across the state,” Andy Pallotta, president of NYSUT
“The use of education tech may have its place, but only as an ancillary to in-person learning, not as its replacement. Along with many other parents and educators, we strongly oppose the Gates Foundation to influence the direction of education in the state by expanding the use of ed tech.” NYSAPE, Class Size Matters, Parent Coalition for Student Privacy
Without these voices at the table, Cuomo has leapfrogged from students’ real and actual needs to a new, idealized picture of education: “The old model of everybody goes and sits in a classroom and the teacher is in front of that classroom and teaches that class, and you do that all across the city, all across the state, all these buildings, all these physical classrooms. Why, with all the technology you have.” Cuomo’s why is clearly rhetorical here but should not keep us from clearly stating why students need teachers in the classroom:
To build attributes like empathy, collaboration, self-regulation that are key to citizenship. The New York Times recently published a letter by an 8th grader who said she preferred distance learning because her studies were no longer interrupted by less well-behaved children. These interruptions are an opportunity to consider the lives of others and what might impact their ability to learn. In-class participation encourages cooperation and sensitivity to the needs of others.
To support our students with disabilities. This is the law and there is no evidence that it works better — or at all — at a distance.
To give students from abusive or chaotic homes a safe and stable environment. For some students, time in the classroom provides a much-needed break from food insecurity, abuse and the stress of unstable family life.
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