To the Point:

March for public education

By William E. Scheuerman

UUP President

May 3 is a big day for public education in New York State. That’s the day the New York State Educational Conference Board and the Public Higher Education Conference Board, along with a broad coalition of other organizations who care about public education, picked for a statewide march in support of public education in New York state. The march will begin at 1 p.m. at the Empire Plaza in Albany. We want to make it the largest march that Albany has ever seen.

To ensure the success of this historical event, we need you, your friends, family and students to join us on May 3. The future of public education, including SUNY, is at stake.

Public education in New York is under the gun. Just look at what’s happening to our public school system from pre-school to post-graduate education.

Proponents of privatization are waging a war on many fronts to make us forget the fact that public education is the backbone of our country’s greatness. Just turn on your TV and you’re likely to see ads touting the value of charter schools over public institutions. No analysis, no discussion of the issues, just a superficial sound bite or two denouncing the quality of public schools. Pretty bad. But guess who’s paying for these ads? We are! Taxpayers are footing the bill for these ads, which are paid for with your federal tax dollars! The school system could sure use these bucks!

Another example is the constant war against the SUNY teaching hospitals. Advocates of privatization talk about how the hospitals are a drain on the University. Exactly the opposite is true: The hospitals serve as cash cows to support academic programs at the other campuses. On the other hand, these advocates of privatization don’t even acknowledge the hospitals’ public mission to offer quality care to the indigent and to provide services that other institutions don’t. Just think of the Stony Brook Health Sciences Center burn unit on Sept. 11.

These examples are only a small part of the attacks on public education. The governor’s budget proposal is another attack spurring our May 3 rally. The governor’s slash-and-burn budget proposes to cut $1.5 billion from K-12 spending and about $600 million from higher education, including a reduction of $183.5 million public dollars from SUNY. Should the proposed cuts pass, SUNY alone could lose 4,000 jobs. In the context of a 20:1 student/faculty ratio, a cut of this magnitude means 80,000 students would lack faculty! Completing degrees in the expected amount of time would be almost impossible as required courses disappear from the schedule. And every semester’s delay in completing the degree is a semester’s delay in earning a better living. Alternatively, the quality of students’ education could decline precipitously as class sizes grow dramatically to meet demand. Consider also the impact on future enrollments as SUNY campuses have to turn away significant numbers of perfectly qualified applicants because there just aren’t enough sections to accommodate them. We can’t allow any of these scenarios to happen.

UUP is an active union. We have been working at fever pitch to make sure the apocalyptic budget is amended and fixed. We’ve written thousands of letters to politicians, run an advertising campaign, spoken with every legislator and are working with coalitions to protect our great state university. But we have to do more.

That’s why we need you on May 3. If we bring tens of thousands of people to Albany, we will certainly get the attention of our elected officials. So make plans to attend. You’ll be with colleagues who feel strongly about SUNY and we’ll even provide some pretty good entertainment. Just call your chapter president or contact me at bscheuer@uupmail.org and we’ll find a way to help get you to Albany on May 3.