Attn: Governor David Paterson, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Speaker Sheldon Silver, and Senate Majority Leader John Sampson

We beg you: Save our teachers! Save our schools! Draconian budget cuts, and the politicking going on around them, are threatening the very fabric of our schools. We ask you, set aside your strategizing, honor the Campaign for Fiscal Equity decision, stop terrifying our parents and teachers, and put all your weight behind adequately funding the New York City school system and preserving the continuity of teaching and learning. As it stands our schools are promised 4% budget cuts—on top of the $400 million of last June and the midyear cut of the previous December—which will certainly lead to excessing, increased class size, loss of arts, after-school, enrichment, counseling, and remediation programs, shortages of vital supplies, and disruption of other core services. You cannot demand that our schools produce higher test scores at the same time you threaten the stability of our classrooms and deprive our schools of sufficient staffing, facilities, supplies, and support for a full curriculum. History has shown that when education is broken it doesn’t go back together again—our schools, and our city, are still suffering from the devastation of the 70s. And our most vulnerable—students with special needs, English-language learners, students with few supports at home—will suffer the most and will face mounting needs if they are not given the tools to succeed on their own. We beg you, for the sake of our city—Save our teachers! Save our schools!