Public News Service
Buffalo
http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/20157-1
BUFFALO, N.Y. – Despite Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s assertion that a $1.3 billion cut in state education funding can be weathered without teacher layoffs, some teachers, parents, students and public-school reform advocates say the cuts are having a harmful impact on students.
Events are scheduled today in six cities across the state, in which advocates will release details of a preliminary analysis of the impact and extent of the cuts.
Ina Downing, who has five grandchildren in Buffalo’s public schools, says full-time teachers there already are being replaced in a rotation of substitutes that is causing inconsistent conditions for learning..
“No, I’m not really buying what the governor is saying about it. To cut any money at all from the school kids is ridiculous and it hurts them.”
In Yonkers, teachers’ union representative Pat Puleo says it’s “devastating.” With 322 teachers getting pink slips on Friday the 13th, she says, pre-kindergarten has been wiped out, kindergarten cut to a half day, and reading teachers and guidance counselors are gone.
Puleo, president of the Yonkers Federation of Teachers, challenges Cuomo’s assertion that trimming waste and overhead can avert layoffs.
“I don’t know where the governor is getting his information, but we no longer have libraries. We no longer have reading teachers. We will no longer have a pre-K program. We will no longer have physical education for many of our students. We will no longer have art and music.”
In the urban setting of Buffalo’s public schools, Downing says, the replacement of full-time teachers with substitutes is creating inconsistency in the classroom that threatens already disadvantaged schoolchildren.
“Especially my granddaughter, being in first grade. She’s behind in her reading, she’s behind in her spelling. She’s going to end up going to summer school because of the rotation system going on.”
Puleo says she can’t overstate the seriousness of the situation.
“We all get sort of hysterical, saying we’re hemorrhaging. We’re past hemorrhaging.”
Today’s events – in Albany, Buffalo, Rochester, Troy, Watertown and Yonkers – are being organized by the Alliance for Quality Education, Citizen Action of New York and New York State United Teachers.
