The Parent Teachers' Association

The High School for Health Professions & Human Services

New York, New York 10003

We, the parents of the HPHS PTA, urge all of our fellow parents to see through and rise up against the hollow efforts of most of the so-called education "reformers," especially Governor Cuomo and the private multi-million dollar companies that support him:

1) We know how difficult it is to focus young children or teenagers for everyday tasks - we raise them. The idea that the responsibility of focusing a student for a standardized exam, and ensuring his/her success on it, belongs solely to the teacher, is absurd.

2) In addition, so many factors go into determining a child's success on a test - their study efforts, sleep patterns, diets, levels of stress outside of school - the idea that a teacher should have their livelihood, their very means for providing for children of their own, tied directly to their students' performance on a standardized test is even more absurd.

3) The fact that "reformers," such as the Governor and other guilty politicians, claim to care for the well being of our society's most poor and unfortunate children, but continue to starve them of their rightful and lawful funding is a disgrace.

4) The fact that "reformers," such as companies that claim to want to help children, but make millions from setting up charter schools, designing new tests, new test prep programs, new curricula, new text books or computer programs, can force the adoption of anxiety-inducing practices that harm our children, is also a disgrace.

5) The destabilization of public education is a threat to our children. The fact that even more teachers could leave the profession, leaving our children with an overwhelmingly inexperienced body of teachers, will mean there will be fewer teachers who can pinpoint our children's struggles, diagnose their disabilities, or just handle their day to day frustrations.

6) Lastly, if our schools are staffed by teachers who do not have the due process protections offered by tenure, then who will stand up for our children when those profit seeking entities subject them to education harm? If anything, we WANT our children to graduate into a world where workers can join unions, that can ensure they are evaluated fairly in the work place, and can protect them when they stand up for what is right!

In the spirit of these common sense realizations, we urge our counterparts across New York State and The United States to defeat the efforts of this so-called "reform" movement in public Education. THERE IS A BETTER WAY!