“Our educators are leading the way by showing students how to engage in civil discussions. We are asking politicians to follow this example, rise above divisive rhetoric, and demonstrate the same civility, respect and collaboration we see in New York’s public schools every day.” Melinda Person, NYSUT President

“I have always believed that when you are running for office, you should deal with facts, not attacks. When you don’t have the facts to debate, you pound on the table and name call and make personal attacks. I can’t thank NYSUT enough for being willing to stand up for real, honest and civil discourse.” Sen. Jim Tedisco

“Our educators are leading the way by showing students how to engage in civil discussions. We are asking politicians to follow this example, rise above divisive rhetoric, and demonstrate the same civility, respect and collaboration we see in New York’s public schools every day.” Melinda Person, NYSUT President

“I have always believed that when you are running for office, you should deal with facts, not attacks. When you don’t have the facts to debate, you pound on the table and name call and make personal attacks. I can’t thank NYSUT enough for being willing to stand up for real, honest and civil discourse.” Sen. Jim Tedisco

“Children with mental health issues are going to be adults with mental health issues, and if we’re not addressing it when they’re young, then we’re not addressing it at all, because we know early intervention is what works. We need therapeutic or clinical workers working with our students and providing wraparound services.” Bonnie Van Kleeck, Kingston Teachers Federation

“Why are we having trouble recruiting and retaining? Because you’re being asked to do all these additional things without the resources. It’s far and above the scope of what you ever thought you’d be signing up to do.” U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan

“I do think it’s important to say that at a time when a lot of institutions and places in our country are not trusted and not supported, I think you all are still held up, and rightfully so. Everybody understands and appreciates the importance of the work you’re doing in our community.” U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan

“I think when you’re talking about a third grader taking a test that’s longer than what an 11th grader would take on a Regents, I think it’s excessive. It’s all coming down to this test score, instead of really how the child is as a whole doing.” Kim Popken, Poughkeepsie Public School TA

“I think it started out well-intentioned. We need tests — there’s a time and a place. But really the tests are measuring the socioeconomic status of a community and labeling them as failing.” Sparrow Tobin, Washingtonville TA

“We’re taking the professionalism out of the profession. New York teachers are highly effective because of what they bring to the table and how they teach, through a career of building your toolbox, and utilizing your tools, but when you standardize, you’re only using one or two tools out of your toolbox. That leads to not being able to explore your craft, hone your craft, and that all leads to a degradation; to mediocrity.” Kevin Rizzo, Highland TA

“Why are we taking a test in April, if we’re not getting the data until November? How does that help our teaching?” Bonnie Van Kleeck, Kingston Teachers Federation

“That’s insane. … My mom is one of the nicest, sweetest women that I’ve ever met. But I’m telling you, in her last two years of teaching, when this was really building and getting bad, I’ve never heard her more salty. She would come home fired up, and say exactly what you said, ‘I’ve spent my whole life dedicated to this. You’re going to come in and tell me how to evaluate my students?’ Just like you said, ‘I know what my kids need. … I feel like the buildup to these tests … it’s taking all the joy, taking all the fun out of it for everybody.” U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan

“When we were kids and we had issues with peers, we could go home and get away from bullies. It may start up again the next morning, but there was a period of time when that didn’t exist. That does not happen with kids today with cellphones and social media. There’s no end. These kids are coming in having been bombarded 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They don’t have the coping skills to deal with this.” Asha Mazza-Shaw, Eastern Suffolk BOCES TA

“Adults barely do. We’re conducting a massive social experiment on a generation of kids and we can say it’s not going terribly well. What’s very clear is this is undermining community, increasing alienation and leading to mental health problems and fueling some of the fracturing we’re seeing in society. The actions we can take [to limit cellphone use] are absolutely necessary.” John Avlon, Candidate for CD 1

“One of the reasons that we are so committed to these congressional elections is because of the threats to cut Title I and other cuts that would be devastating to our schools. So this is life or death for us, in terms of this funding. For a lot of our schools — without Title I funding — the devastation would be tremendous.” Melinda Person, NYSUT President

We are really grateful and happy to be able to do this work, but the well runs dry and people are stretched and burned out. We love and care about our kids and want to provide the best we can, but we do need the funding, federally, to make sure that that can happen.” Kara McCormick-Lyons, White Plains TA

“I’m one of those kids who benefited from Title I, growing up in Section 8 housing on food stamps, attending East Ramapo Public Schools. We have to make sure that our lower income school districts get the federal funding that they need, not to just survive, but thrive.” Mondaire Jones, Candidate for CD 17

“We are the district that houses the Indian Point power plant that has recently been fully decommissioned. What that has brought to my district is a 30% drop in revenue. My teachers, my members, and the school district are in a very tenuous scenario where in about five years time, the money from that fund is going to run dry, and there’s only one way out of this: to raise taxes precipitously. And that’s part of the reason I’m here to put it on the radar, because we’re going to need help.” James Rogulski, Hendrick Hudson EA

“I’ve been thinking a lot about what happens after Indian Point, and what I can promise you is that as a member of Congress, it will be a top priority of mine to make sure that your school district has the kind of federal support that it needs as we think about a long-term solution.” Mondaire Jones, Candidate for CD 17

“The rigorous amount of testing has narrowed the experience of kids for too many generations. At the high school level, experiential learning is getting our students out into the fields in which they’re going to explore careers.” John Kuryla, North Syracuse EA

“The advocacy is starting to work. The pendulum is swinging. We’re getting kids exposed to more career paths earlier on. I’m a supporter of reasonable changes to graduation requirements so we get kids exposed to career paths sooner.” Sen. John Mannion, Candidate for CD 22

“Students, when they come into the cafeteria, you can tell they’re hungry. I think what we can do is invest more money into food service programs. And we need to start reaching out to farmers in our area and getting food from them so our students have healthy food to eat. We need to start investing in our communities.” Bernard Washington, Syracuse TA

“As somebody who’s been in the schools for a long time, I watched a lot of teachers support students out of their own pockets. I was on cafeteria duty when a kid reaches the end of that line and they don’t have any money on them. And I watched the embarrassment that comes with that, and cafeteria workers doing everything they can to make sure that they still got fed that day. We supported and got pretty far with universal school meals. And we haven’t gotten everywhere yet, but we need an improvement on the Nourish New York program, which makes sure we’re supporting our farmers and closely connecting them with schools.” Sen. John Mannion, Candidate for CD 22

“Eight teachers were cut at Trumansburg. Where does the money come from to support our students?” Patrick Edwards, Trumansburg TA

“In Vestal, we laid off two AIS reading teachers. We didn’t have the money for academic intervention. Either you pay for early intervention or you pay for remediation, and one of them costs a lot more.” Joseph Herringshaw, Vestal TA

“I just see all of this as a false choice. We shouldn’t be making these kinds of trade-offs in our public education and in our schools. We’re doing everything wrong if our teachers are the ones making trade-offs instead of the hedge fund managers.” Josh Riley, Candidate for CD 19

“When you look at SUNY at large, or public higher education nationally, its crucial role is providing access and opportunity. We know for a fact there are hundreds of thousands of people in this country that aren’t even considering college anymore because of the cost. Think about the role of public higher education in addressing civility in our society.“ Fred Kowal, UUP President

“I’m a believer in public education. And when I advocate for public higher education, I say if you are a resident of New York state, you do not have to leave the state to follow any passion, any dream, any career path you want.” Sen. John Mannion, Candidate for CD 22