To the Parents and Guardians in the Hicksville School Community:
Every day, you entrust us with your most precious gifts - your children. As teachers, it is our life’s purpose to develop their intellects, cultivate their interests, and nurture their dreams. We share the pride you have for their accomplishments, and are sad to see them leave when they graduate from Hicksville High School. And when they return to visit, we marvel at the young adults they have become. Unfortunately, we are now convinced that the caring, nurturing environment your children deserve is at risk. Without ever having set foot in our community, the Governor has declared that our schools are failures, that we are failures, and that your children are failures. We absolutely do not agree. We are therefore taking this extraordinary step of reaching out to you, directly, to ask for your help in preserving what is best about our school community.
Holding as hostage the State Aid our community requires, the Governor is demanding that the weight given to the standardized tests your children must annually endure be more than doubled. The controversy around these tests is hardly a secret. Some parents have chosen not to have their children take them at all. We respect and support your right as parents to make your own choice. But if the Governor gets what he wants, your children’s school experience will, by cruel necessity, revolve around yet more testing and test scores. And as a result, the rich curriculum you expect and your children deserve will be reduced to the lowest common-denominators - more test-prep, more pressure, more anxiety, less time for science, social studies, creativity and exploration, and less individual attention, especially for our most vulnerable learners. In short, our schools will be forced to become factories designed to produce the best possible bubble-fillers. This might be wonderful for test-making corporations such as Pearson and others who profit handsomely from the tests, but what about your children? Do they matter? Does the Governor care?
It has been made very clear to us that the Governor has no interest in our concerns. But it may yet be that others in state government, those who will vote on these proposals, have an interest in your concerns. So, on behalf of your children, we ask you to contact your elected representatives:
SD-5 Senator Carl Marcellino 516-922-1811 or marcelli@senate.state.us
SD-6 Senator Kemp Hannon 516-739-1700 or hannon@nysenate.gov
SD-7 Senator Jack Martins 516-746-5924 or martins@nysenate.gov
AD- 13 Assemblyman Charles Lavine 516-676-0050 or lavinec@assembly.state.ny.us
AD-15 Assemblyman Michael Montesano 516-937-3571 or montesanom@assembly.state.ny.us
Please ask them to oppose the Governor’s agenda of “test more, blame more.” Please ask them to fully fund our schools without conditions or strings. Please ask them to return the $11 million that is owed to the Hicksville schools from the budget surplus that exists in NY State government. Please ask them to say “no” to the Governor’s cynical, transparent goal - to seize control of your schools from your neighbors on the Board of Education and hand it over to his campaign contributors.
Please ask them to let us do what we know best. Please let us teach.
Sincerely,
Joan M. Deem
President