Fight for America's Future Tour 2010: Syracuse

'Say Yes to Education' overview and Delaware School tour
May 7, 10:30 a.m.

AFT president Randi Weingarten and the Fight for America's Future tour stopped in Syracuse, N.Y., two days after a public hearing in which more than 200 students and supporters jammed City Hall to plead for less crowded classrooms—some classes now pack in more than 30 students per room—and quick action to avoid laying off about 240 school employees.

Despite deep concern over the state's budget crisis, education advocates in Syracuse point to new successes, especially a thriving community partnership called Say Yes to Education (www.sayyessyracuse.org), which removes barriers to children's learning. Say Yes not only provides complete college scholarships but offers the child care, after-school programs, academic support and counseling needed for students to make it to college.

The first stop to see Say Yes to Education in action was Delaware School, a preK-5 school in the center of the seventh-poorest neighborhood in the nation. There, a free health center, legal clinic, social services room, clothes pantry and laundry serve students and, by extension, their families. Every one of those services is essential in a district whose English language learner population in three years has jumped from 7 percent to 12 percent. One afternoon a week, the legal clinic offers families free counseling on matters as varied as housing, immigration and employment. Thanks to Say Yes, the elementary school even has a small dentist's office.

"I really wanted to get here and see what you're all doing," Weingarten told the educators and their partners. "The fact that Syracuse is trying to do things in a systemic way, not a quick fix, shows your courage to speak the truth about problems and solve them. That's just fantastic."

The hope of Say Yes is solutions that are both comprehensive and enduring. Superintendent Daniel Lowengard said the larger community needs to be patient and trust educators because they are closest to the children and have the keenest understanding of what students need to succeed. "The local union leadership here has been exceptional," he said, "not just in providing support but in finding solutions."

Weingarten stopped by the school's Say Yes office and visited several classrooms. In a prekindergarten class, children sang and danced to a song that teacher Deen Anthony had taught them. They sang, "When the world seems like it's falling down, don't let the blues get to ya." At the end, one child joined her classmates in a deep bow, then popped up, shouting, "And the crowd goes crazy!"

Frazer School
11:45 a.m.

The magnitude of educators' hopes and fears hit home at Frazer School, a K-8 facility with a large refugee population. About a quarter of the students at Frazer come from countries in turmoil, such as Somalia, Burma and Burundi.

As an ESL teacher at the middle-school level, Lyda Ragonese arranges for interpreters in 14 languages. "These students come from all over the world, and some have never been to school at all," she said. In one instance, a child was found bringing a razor to school—to sharpen coal to write with. The children often must be shown how to hold pencils and pizza.

The staff at Frazer look at federal education reform through the prism of immigration and high-stakes testing. "We brought the press in to see kids crying," said principal Robert DiFlorio. "They come from terrible refugee camps and they've never been to school. We ask them to take a bubble test. You could predict the result." One sixth-grader arrived from Nepal on a Tuesday and had to take an accountability test on Thursday. "If the roles were reversed and I was in Nepal, I'm not sure how I'd feel about it," DiFlorio said. "That's where we're at."

As a former social studies teacher, Weingarten pitched in with some on-the-spot lessons for Frazer's middle-schoolers. She asked seventh-grade English students about their aspirations and was told: veterinarian, baseball player, forensic scientist, actor and pediatrician. "Wow, my sister's a pediatrician," she said. "So you want to help kids." One girl said she wants to be a ceramics engineer, which she described as a type of artist. "But my dad is graduating from college tomorrow," she added, "and he says I should be a mechanical engineer."

In a seventh-grade social studies class learning about conflicts facing the early United States, Weingarten said, "Let me teach you a little bit about American government today." She told them about the AFT's "Pink Hearts, Not Pink Slips" campaign launched May 4 to fight school layoffs, explaining that the U.S. House of Representatives has passed a $23 billion measure to help sustain American education until the recession has lifted, but that the legislation still faces a rough time in the Senate. To a boy who asked how long the fight would go on, she replied, "As long as it takes."

Luncheon and town hall meeting
1:30 p.m.

After the school tours, Weingarten and the Syracuse partners who participated in the tour—members of the Syracuse Teachers Association, other nearby AFT affiliates and community allies—met at the union offices for a luncheon and town hall meeting with U.S. Rep. Dan Maffei (D-N.Y.), who discussed ways to protect children and their schools from budget cuts. Rep. Maffei is a co-sponsor of the $23 billion bill that would avert layoffs and program cuts in the coming school year.

Maffei said he was pleased by the day's encouraging jobs report but still regards the economy as "too fragile" to endure any more weakening of the public sector. "We shouldn't have teachers or firefighters or other public employees facing layoffs," he said.

Weingarten agreed. "These are the toughest times I've ever seen," she said, "and $23 billion is finally an acknowledgement that you can't cut all these teachers."

As Syracuse Teachers Association president Anne Marie Voutsinas put it, "Students need educators in the classroom, not in the unemployment lines."

The Fight for America's Future tour stops next in Chicago on May 11. [Annette Licitra, photos by Lauren Long, video by Matthew Jones/Brett Sherman]