It’s late Wednesday night and state lawmakers are passing a number of bills, including pension reform. Details are coming out in dribs and drabs. While most of this legislation impacts the state budget, the actual state budget is still out there, awaiting passage. For a personal perspective on what state budget cuts mean, meet Casey [...]

Above are the videos and photos  from today’s Education Lobby Day sponsored by the Alliance for Quality Education. Here’s one link to coverage. Here’s another, which puts high up how a group of Watkins Glens students raised $800 to make the trip.  Compare that to this report, where the New York City mayor notes he had [...]

Pension reform is in the news. Here’s one link about lobbying going on in the Capitol today. That link also includes video of one of the TV ads now airing. Here’s a link to a Daily News article about concerns of Tier 6. Take a look at who is pushing pension reform. The biggest name [...]

Speaker after speaker at the Rural and Small City Advocacy Day decried the idea of turning school aid into competitive grants that pit school against school in a bizarre contest. Here’s one link from Gannet Newspapers and a brief from North Country Now. Here’s another from Your News Now. Here’s a Fox News report. A [...]

Dr. John Sipple of the state Center for Rural Schools and a Cornell University professor was the keynote speaker at today’s Small City and Rural Schools Advocacy Day in Albany. He laid out, with charts and figures, the dire straits of the high-need districts across the state. You can find a lot of those charts and [...]

The pro-public education ad created by the Schoharie Teachers Association, and funded by locals across the state, has hit the airwaves. Here’s a link to an Albany Times Union article about the ad. One thing wrong in the article is it makes it sound like it’s the first time local unions have produced commercials on [...]

Full disclosure, only one of these is a true “rally.” Nearly 900 people will be at the Hart Theatre at the Egg in downtown Albany for the small cities and rural areas lobbying effort Wednesday. NYSUT officers Andy Pallotta and Kathleen Donahue are among the dozens who will speak. I will be tweeting it live [...]

As I write this, the Canton community is gearing up for the drive down to Albany next week. There’s a meeting tonight organized after word got out about the massive cuts to programs the district is facing. Canton is one of nearly 30 school districts across the state sending at least one busload of folks [...]

Hope we all got a good rest because it’s a busy week ahead. Yes, the deadline looms this week for an agreement on teacher evaluation. Here’s an interesting take on New York City’s negotiations from the elected public advocate. This week, NYSUT will release a video about the impact of a pension on one teaching [...]

Across the state there are school districts working together. Syracuse is one of them and Friday morning is a great example. Starting at 8:30 a.m. the union joins with district administrators, Say YES to education and Syracuse 20/20. Together the groups will tell their elected lawmakers, both city and state, why the Syracuse schools need [...]