Runoff Tuesday October 1 – Don’t Forget to Vote!

Letitia James

Letitia James

We urge you to vote on Tuesday, October 1 as there’s an important run-off between Letitia James and Daniel Squadron, the two candidates running for Public Advocate who have very different records on education.

TIsh James has been a leader on the issues of parent empowerment, has fought damaging charter co-locations in her community, and drawn attention to their abusive disciplinary practices.

She opposes dictatorial mayoral control of our schools, and supports giving Community Education Councils decision making authority over school closures and co-locations.  See her terrific responses to our survey here.

She has also fought wasteful and corrupt city contractors, like those responsible for the CityTime scandal, who stole more than $500 million of taxpayer funds.

Though Daniel Squadron has sent flyers to voters claiming he believes in more parent engagement, he was the first Democrat in the NYS Senate to jump ship and sponsor the bill that renewed mayoral control nearly unchanged, four years ago.

This legislation gave us the current system that has allowed the mayor to run roughshod over the priorities of parents and communities.  Though Squadron’s flyers say he favors improving the treatment of special needs students by DOE, he has remained silent over the way many charter schools exclude and push out students with disabilities.

Squadron also supported raising the cap on charters, and has received more than $25,000 in campaign donations from hedge fund executives linked to charter schools, according to Juan Gonzalez of the Daily News. In the recent debate on NY1, he evaded answering a question on co-locations, and refused to respond to our survey.

Now that Bloomberg and his privatization agenda are unpopular with the voters, Squadron is attempting to avoid talking about his record on these issues; but don’t be fooled.

You have a stark choice between two candidates on Tuesday – Tish James who has stood up for the rights of public school parents and their children; Dan Squadron who has not.

Shino, Mario, Isaac, Lisa, Leonie, Andy, Karen and Tesa for NYC Kids PAC

PS You have until Oct. 11 to register to vote in the mayoral election that will take placeTuesday, November 5.

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