This post originally ran on the Gotham Gazette The New York State Senate and Assembly, both now in Democratic hands, last month gave first passage to several changes to an earlier constitutional amendment, adopted in 2014, creating a so-called Independent Redistricting Commission to redraw district lines every ten years for Read more…
By Robin Jacobowitz and KT Tobin On August 7th Governor Cuomo announced that our COVID numbers in New York State were sufficiently low to allow us to send our K-12 children, our teachers, and school staff back into school buildings. There’s a good reason for wanting to do this. The Read more…
By Robin Jacobowitz, Gerald Benjamin, and KT Tobin “Everything connects to everything,” Leonardo Da Vinci is said to have concluded from his life’s work. Nowhere is this lesson more evident than in K12 education this year. In the face of a pandemic, we closed our school buildings to protect the Read more…
On April 11, 2020, with his school chancellor Richard Carranza standing beside him, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that New York City’s schools would be closed for the remainder of the school year to limit the spread of coronavirus infection. Almost immediately thereafter, Governor Andrew Cuomo dismissed this announcement as Read more…
On the second Tuesday in May, in ordinary times, voters across New York State (with the exception of those in the Conference of Big Five School Districts—Buffalo, Syracuse, NYC, Yonkers, Rochester) head to the polls to cast a ballot in favor of or against their local public school district budget. Read more…
The fundamentals of school have been relatively stable over time; students board a yellow bus or walk to school each day, sit through classes with peers and teachers, participate in any number of extracurricular activities, and take the bus or walk home. But school is looking pretty different these days; Read more…
One person was never meant to be in charge in these United States. Given Donald Trump’s oft demonstrated predisposition to act with little regard for the constitution, it certainly appears that, in making sure that governmental power was dispersed, the founders had a very good idea.
While many parents across New York State are home juggling their own remote work and making sure their kids are attending to their online instruction, there’s something those kids won’t have to do this spring: take Regents exams. These were cancelled by the NY State Education Department (SED) last week. Read more…
It’s impossible to quarrel with the New York State Senate and Assembly amending their rules last month to allow remote, electronic attendance and voting at legislative sessions during the current murderous pandemic. In-person sessions certainly would have qualified in size and character as the kinds of large gatherings that have Read more…
Vice President Pence and other federal officials suggested on March 24 that it would be a good idea for people to self-quarantine for two weeks if they’ve recently left or passed through New York City. Three days later President Trump declared that he was thinking of quarantining parts of New Read more…