Parents, students, teachers and administrators, including many from the northwest Bronx, crowded sidewalks near City Hall on March 19 to protest proposed cuts to the city’s education budget. The rally was organized by the Keep the Promises Coalition, a group of more than 70 community and education groups and labor unions which banded together in February in response to recent city and state proposals to cut education budgets.

With signs and fliers in hand, and umbrellas braced up against the rain, people were ready to fight for their schools.

Elected officials from all five boroughs attended the rally, and most said they would vote against the mayor’s proposed budget if funding for public education is reduced. Mayor Bloomberg has proposed a $324 million cut to education programs for fiscal year 2009. This is on top of a $100 million mid-year cut imposed on city schools in January.

In total, the state and city cuts to education proposed for next year could come to as much as $800 million, according to the coalition.

Coalition members called on city and state officials to hold to the agreement made in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity’s court settlement, which said that city schools should receive a multi-year $2.35 billion increase in basic classroom operating aid, or $528 million this year.

At press time, Gov. David Paterson and the state legislature were ironing out the details of the state budget. The state assembly had passed a budget bill a few weeks ago calling for an additional $300 million in education funding to former Gov. Spitzer’s proposed budget. According to the New York Times, it seemed as though the assembly may have succeeded as of the afternoon of April 1.   

At the rally, people chanted, “Sí se puede,” [“Yes we can”] and repeated the rally’s theme, “Keep the Promises.” Among the paraphernalia handed out at the rally were fliers from Teachers For A Just Contract, asking what it would take to stop the budget cuts from happening, both now and in the future.    —Jennifer DeYoung