 |
Panoramic shot
from the stage shows the crowd stretching to the State Museum in the distance. | The
skies over Albany were blue and cloudless May 3, 2003, but up to 40,000 supporters
of public education brought thunder and lightning to the capital city with a three-word
message to Gov. George Pataki that reverberated from Montauk to Massena - "Sign
the bills!" Just a day after the state Legislature finished voting to restore
$1.1 billion of the $1.2 billion in education aid cut in the governor's budget,
teachers, school-related professionals, support staff, parents, students, administrators,
union members, elected officials and other supporters from across the state converged
on the Empire State Plaza to praise the lawmakers and demand that the governor
sign the budget bills. If he doesn't, the crowd called on legislators to be prepared
to override his expected veto. Organizers estimated the vast crowd at up
to 40,000, and Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings declared: "You've set a record here!"
in announcing the attendance figure. "But we should be setting records," Jennings
roared. "We are here for our children." Above all, it was concern for the
children that brought the record crowds to Albany, speakers like Penny Leask,
president of the New York State PTA, noted. "We are one voice for all children,"
Leask said. "That's why we are all here today." Blaise Salerno, chair of
the New York State Educational Conference Board, said the governor may have forgotten
a campaign pledge that education was going to be his top priority. "I think our
being here is going to jog his memory," Salerno said. "Today we have brought
thunder and lightning to Albany," Tom Hobart, president of the 500,000-member
New York State United Teachers, told the cheering crowd that hoisted colorful
banners, waved flags and toted hand-painted signs with such messages as: "If you
can read this, your school had $." "We must bring thunder and lightning
every day," Hobart said. "We must use this mighty ocean of New Yorkers here today
to carry our public schools, colleges and universities forward." Like his
counterparts from the New York State Council of School Superintendents and the
School Administrators Association of New York State, Tim Kremer, the executive
director of the New York State School Boards Association reminded the audience
that passage of the budget is only half the battle in the ongoing war to preserve
public education. "We have to complete the job on June 3 by voting 'yes'
on our school district budgets," said Kremer. Hobart, like many of the
more than 40 speakers at the two-hour rally, praised legislators and their leaders,
state Sen. Majority Leader Joe Bruno (R-Brunswick) and Assembly Speaker Sheldon
Silver (D-Manhattan), for the bipartisan effort to restore funding. And the lawmakers
were quick to acknowledge the support - and importance - of the people who educate
New York's kids. "Teachers are the architects of our future - the single
most important element in our children's success," Silver said in a special videotaped
message presented by Assemblyman Herman D. Farrell (D-Manhattan). "In rough
times, you set priorities," Bruno said. "Our priority is investing in education.
That's why we've made all these education restorations." To great roars of approval
from various sections of the audience, Bruno itemized the restorations the Legislature
made, including BOCES, teacher centers, universal pre-K, building aid and higher
education. "The governor should sign those bills," said Bruno, one of many
speakers to issue a challenge to Pataki that would become a mantra the crowd would
chant repeatedly. State Comptroller Alan Hevesi called the record turnout
"so tremendously important." "This is more than a party," said Hevesi. "This
is a coalition to stand for our kids, our schools and our future." The coalition
that sponsored the rally numbers more than two dozen groups, many of which make
up the state's Educational Conference Board and the Public Higher Education Conference
Board. Greg Nash, president of the National Education Association-New York,
issued his own challenge to the governor. "George, we want you to know - all New
Yorkers are your teachers. Learn your lessons, do your homework, sign the bill." "Go
back and tell your students that you made history for them," said Randi Weingarten,
president of the 140,000-member United Federation of Teachers, NYSUT's largest
local affiliate. Weingarten led the crowd in a pledge to support state lawmakers
if they are forced to override a Pataki veto. "The Legislature stood up
for us, the children and education and did it in a bipartisan way that has not
been seen since, well, probably never," Weingarten said. But as higher
education leaders warned, the ongoing battle for support of public education doesn't
end at grade 12. Higher education "is not just an expense, it's an investment
in the future," said Carl McCall, co-chairman of the Public Higher Education Conference
Board. "CUNY is committed to being a ladder of opportunity for people in the city.
SUNY continues to be the leader in providing a world-class education." "You
swim against the current to prepare kids, but if the governor's budget goes through,
higher ed won't be there for them," said William Scheuerman, president of United
University Professions, which represents 28,000 academic and professional faculty
at the State University of New York. The head of the union that represents
some 20,000 faculty and staff at the City University of New York thanked K-12
activists for their help in restoring much of CUNY's funding and pledged to help
keep the budget in place. "We will support our legislators and resist every
attempt to bully them out of a principled override vote," said Barbara Bowen,
president of the Professional Staff Congress. Throughout organized labor,
from Danny Donohue, president of the Civil Service Employees Association, to Denis
Hughes, president of the New York State AFL-CIO, the message to the governor was
clear: "Sign the bills." Regent Robert Johnson, who attended the rally along
with Regent Joseph Bowman, disputed the governor's claim that raising taxes to
pay for budget restorations will hurt the state's economy. In addition to sitting
on the state's education policy-making board, Johnson described himself as CEO
of a New York City business "who will pay the higher taxes passed and do so gladly."
The May 3 rally fell on another landmark day for education, according to
Samira Ahmed, who chairs the Campaign for Fiscal Equity. "Ten years ago today,"
Ahmed told the crowd, "we sued the state because it said that an eighth-grade
education was good enough. An eighth-grade education is not good enough." The
Alliance for Quality Education, headed by Regina Eaton, is one of CFE's supporters
in its ongoing legal battle to change the way New York funds public education.
When the Alliance's spokesperson, actress Cynthia Nixon, addressed the crowd,
it was as the worried mother of a child in a New York City public school, not
as one of the stars of TV's "Sex and the City." "My daughter goes to school
on the upper west side in Manhattan, which is a relatively affluent neighborhood,"
Nixon said. "Yet, even in her school we have lost the large majority of our assistant
teachers, hundreds of students are virtually unsupervised during lunch, and school
supplies are very scarce." | 
