New school construction and higher salaries for teachers are part of an education plan State Senate hopeful Daniel Squadron is shopping around the 20th State Senate District.
According to the eight-page plan, entitled “Change Albany Means Better Results for Our Kids,” Squadron promises to bring “new ideas” to Albany that would give “the community a stronger, clearer voice, fixing what’s not working and putting more emphasis on what happens in the classroom.”
“I believe that every child deserves access to a world-class public education,” Squadron explained. “And at a time when all New Yorkers are facing an affordability crunch, great public school options make it a whole lot easier for middle-class families to stay in the city.”
His plan, which a cynic would describe as “pie in the sky,” includes “true redistricting” to create small, compact districts that better align school districts with the neighborhoods they serve.
“Districts that align with community board boundaries would empower communities to use this existing structure to make it easier for parents to have their voices heard,” Squadron said.
Other changes include creating “new schools in new buildings,” finding new revenue for new construction, increasing parental engagement with local schools and demanding that district superintendents be required to work closely with Community Education Councils (CEC) and school parent groups.
“Parents must have a formal forum for concerns,” he said.
“We shouldn’t be spending hundreds of millions to keep empty upstate prisons open when we are closing out hundreds of students every year from overcrowded public schools right here in New York City,” he said, taking a slice at his opponent State Senator Martin Connor, who inadvertently voted for more money to upstate prisons when he signed onto the state’s 2008 budget.
“This shows exactly what’s wrong with the broken culture of Albany,” Squadron said. “Special interest favors and maintaining the status quo are the top priority for legislators, while voters and neighborhoods get left behind.”
Calls to Connor’s campaign office for comment about Squadron’s education plan were not returned as this paper went to press.
Yet there are those who said that Squadron’s plan could work – if Squadron were running for the City Council.
“The state provides the funding, but it’s the city that’s in charge of redistricting and school construction,” one political watchdog said.
