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| D.C. Statehood Greens Join Protest Against Proposed $90 Million Budget Cut for Public Schools. |
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THE D.C. STATEHOOD GREEN PARTY Contact: D.C. STATEHOOD GREENS JOIN PROTEST AGAINST THE PROPOSED $90 MILLION BUDGET CUT FOR D.C. PUBLIC SCHOOLS Statehood Greens blast Mayor Williams' plan to 'Privatize, Bureaucratize, Destroy' -- budget cuts for public schools; takeover of the School Board; school vouchers. WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Members of the D.C. Statehood Green Party are participating in a September 30 rally to demand reversal of a $90 million budget cut for D.C. Public Schools proposed by D.C. City Council and Mayor Anthony Williams. During the rally, a statement (appended below) from Gail Dixon, a D.C. Statehood Green Party activist and former member of the D.C. School Board, will be read. The rally is sponsored by the DCPS Full Funding Campaign, a coalition of parents, students, teachers, residents, community organizations, and unions representing DCPS employees, and takes place 4 p.m. at Freedom Plaza, 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Rally organizers note that the cut will affect over 67,000 school children, and have observed that, while city officials are willing to spend nearly $350 million in taxpayers' money and bonds for a new baseball stadium, they can't find the money to ensure that public school buildings are clean and safe. (For more information about the rally, call 202-624-8100.) Statehood Greens have called the combined effect of the proposed budget cuts, school voucher plan to be imposed by Congress (awaiting a vote in the Senate), and takeover of the School Board a vicious assault, led by Mayor Williams, on public schools and on accountability to District children, parents, and other residents. Party members compared the plan to de-fund public schools while transferring taxpayers' money to certain religious schools through school vouchers to the dismantling and privatization of D.C. General Hospital, which led to a collapse in public health care in the District. STATEMENT BY GAIL DIXON Friends: I am a veteran of the elected Board of Education. I say veteran because there is a war on. A war against our children, and the very idea the great bed-rock, fundamental, American idea of public education for all. And the mayor of this city, and many of our elected officials, are on the other side in that war. They have chosen to become our enemy. They were attacking our children when they decided to remove parents and taxpayers and other citizens from having a full role in the election of the persons most directly responsible for oversight of our schools, the Board of Education. Now, rather than admit that the hybrid board was no magic bullet, as they had claimed three years ago, they are peddling another magic bullet. Eliminate all the elected members, if not the Board itself. They attack our children when they do not provide required funding. Isn't it just perfectly clear that a pay raise for teachers must be funded? Why can't the Mayor understand that? Which bean can't he count there? Isn't it perfectly clear that schools must be repaired if maintenance budgets have been looted for decades? Isn't it perfectly clear that the Superintendent must have control of his own financial systems? That vouchers are a cruel joke for many of our children? And on and on and on. This mayor promised so much when he was first elected, and when he was using out-of-state money to grab power by creating a hybrid Board of Education. But he has always been missing in action when it comes to our children. How do you spell Tony? A.W.O.L. If, as he says, public education is a "slow-moving train wreck" and that statement is a lie how can he expect us to forget that he was an engineer in the cab of that train? Let me add one more thing. I work at UDC, and I have seen that his attack on public education spares no-one. At UDC he has not fulfilled his responsibility to nominate board members who can make an institution work as it should. He has attempted land grabs on behalf of his shadowy patrons. He has rejoiced in criticism and avoided any constructive engagement. And while we are at it, he and Kevin Chavous and the Council have not done very well by the public library system either. I say, it's time for a change. P.S.: I'm not accustomed to helping out Republican presidents who did not win their election, but yo! George W. Bush! listen up! If you are thinking of Tony Williams as your Secretary of Education, don't. Give him a role in education and you'll be sorry. We sure are. MORE INFORMATION |
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