To: Michael Bloomberg, Mayor and the New York City Council

Tell Mayor Bloomberg & the NYC Council: No Excuses for School Cuts

We are calling on Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council to invest in school improvement, not cut programs, increase class sizes or take teachers out of the classroom.

Why is this important?

Mayor Bloomberg proposes to cut $350 million directly from the classroom by removing 6,000 teachers from our schools through attrition and layoffs. In addition, the Mayor is proposing $79 million in cuts to early childhood education and $34 million in cuts to community-based after school programs. This would mean cuts to all schools and would lead to the sharpest rises in class size in over thirty years. There are clear alternatives

Arts, music, performing arts, physical education, career and technical education, libraries and intervention services would also be hard hit. The Mayor's budget represents a major step backwards in New York's commitment to quality education and is morally unconscionable.

We are calling on Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council to invest in school improvement, not cut programs, increase class sizes or take teachers out of the classroom.