Television and movie star, Cynthia Nixon, best known for her role as Miranda on the HBO show, "Sex and the City," can add a new title to her imdb page: Star of a commercial on the New York State budget.
Nixon, a public school parent in New York City and a graduate of New York City public schools, has spent nine years as a spokeswoman for the Alliance for Quality Education, and now she's trying to go viral.
The video protests what they say are $1.5 billion in cuts to schools being proposed simultaneously with a $4.5 billion tax cut for high income New Yorkers.
“The video contest provides an opportunity for students, parents and teachers to let Governor Cuomo know the educational consequences of his dramatic school cuts,” said Billy Easton, Executive Director, AQE. “Yesterday’s Quinnipiac poll shows that 76% of New Yorkers oppose these cuts, meanwhile several polls show that two-thirds to three quarters of New Yorkers don’t want to see the Governor cut taxes for the wealthy.”
The video contest offers prizes of iPads for students or $1000 donations to classrooms our youth organizations to the winners. Contest submissions are due March 8, finalists will be posted on the AQE web site and winners announced in mid-March. Details on how to enter the contest are included the Priorities video and on the AQE web site.
Showing posts with label Teachers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teachers. Show all posts
Friday, February 25, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
New Yorkers Speak
A Quinnipiac poll released on Thursday offered a glimpse into the minds of New Yorkers, and they seem fine with the idea of firing bad teachers to help close the state's massive budget deficit.
With the prospect of teacher layoffs now seeming inevitable in the wake of record cuts to education funding, voters are being asked to examine the old way of executing teacher layoffs. The idea of "last in, first out" is being reexamined by New Yorkers, and 85 percent would like to abandon that system in favor of deciding layoffs based on performance. Even amongst families with a union member, the idea that seniority doesn't ensure security has 75 percent support.
"By a huge majority, voters from every group oppose LIFO - last-in-first-out," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Voters, especially voters with kids in public school, want to keep the best teachers on the job, and to heck with seniority."
But while parents may like their teachers, they don't like their teachers' union, with 56 percent of public school parents having a negative view of teachers unions.
Voters also claim to be concerned with the potential that budget woes will distract from the passage of ethics reform and redistricting legislation. Yet, while voters express concern for these issues and don't want them forgotten, it would be interesting to see them prioritize and weight these issues, which would presumably show how little they actually care about things that don't impact their bank accounts.
From February 15 - 21, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,457 registered voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.6 percentage points. Live interviewers call land lines and cell phones.
With the prospect of teacher layoffs now seeming inevitable in the wake of record cuts to education funding, voters are being asked to examine the old way of executing teacher layoffs. The idea of "last in, first out" is being reexamined by New Yorkers, and 85 percent would like to abandon that system in favor of deciding layoffs based on performance. Even amongst families with a union member, the idea that seniority doesn't ensure security has 75 percent support.
"By a huge majority, voters from every group oppose LIFO - last-in-first-out," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Voters, especially voters with kids in public school, want to keep the best teachers on the job, and to heck with seniority."
But while parents may like their teachers, they don't like their teachers' union, with 56 percent of public school parents having a negative view of teachers unions.
Voters also claim to be concerned with the potential that budget woes will distract from the passage of ethics reform and redistricting legislation. Yet, while voters express concern for these issues and don't want them forgotten, it would be interesting to see them prioritize and weight these issues, which would presumably show how little they actually care about things that don't impact their bank accounts.
From February 15 - 21, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,457 registered voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.6 percentage points. Live interviewers call land lines and cell phones.
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