Town Hall meeting - save Rochester schools

Thursday, March 22nd
6:30pm
Roger Robach Community Center (the "Beach House")
200 Beech Street, Charlotte (up by the beach, across from Abbott's)

Town Hall Meeting to Get our Children What They Need to Succeed with Manny Rivera and Joseph Robach

For the past year Metro Justice has been working with the Alliance for Quality Education to take politics out of school funding in New York State and bring home much needed funding to needy school districts.

THIS IS IT!!!

For years Pataki and the state legislature obstructed a court order to create equitable funding for school districts (some districts on Long Island provide horseback riding lessons for their students while students in Franklin High School here in the city don't even have enough books). With Spitzer as Governor we have a shot at finally overhauling the system.

We need to turn out a massive crowd for this event. This is the culmination of years of organizing.

Governor Spitzer's plan includes the reforms that AQE has been working for:

• smaller class sizes
• expanding after-school programs
• universal pre-K
• holding school board, principals and teachers accountable for student achievement
• statewide property tax relief

But Senate Majority Leader Bruno is presenting an education budget proposal that attempts to buy off needy districts with more money without addressing disparities in funding. For instance, Bruno's plan would provide high needs districts (like Rochester) a 7.7%-10.9% increase, but would also provide a whopping 15.6% to wealthy districts, thereby increasing advantages to students from wealthy neighborhoods. Nor does Bruno's proposal include any accountability, or extra funding for pre-K, or after-school programs.

Will Senator Joe Robach show independence from the Republican Majority Leaders and vote for equitable funding, or will he go along with Bruno's plan to increase wealthy districts' advantages?

Please come and put your body in the crowd!


New York State has the highest level of inequality of any state in the nation. Our school funding formula shouldn't make the problem worse.

See you there!

Rosemary Rivera, Alliance for Quality Education Organizer
for more info, go to MetroJustice.com