IGNORING THE ROOT CAUSE? We can never separate pay-for-play corruption from the debate on education funding. When our elected leaders are in the pockets of billionaires, it’s no wonder austerity continues.

We knew there were glaring inequities long before this study. In NY, there is as much as $10,000 differential between fully funded and deprived public school students. Our courts ruled NY state owed billions to it’s needy schools over ten years ago, but fiscal equity has never come. Why? NY’s elected officials serve billionaires, refusing to pay for a minimal sound education for the underprivileged.

New York’s governor is a Democrat, but “triangulates” with Republicans and wealthy donors, withholding billions in school funding every year, and refuses to raise taxes on his billionaire donors, to change a broken campaign funding system.

But just as bad as Trump and DeVos, these Wall Street funded Democrats push charter schools and “backdoor” vouchers, taking money from Republicans and ed reformers hiding behind dark money PACs and shady LLCs.

The post above does a fine job of describing the problem, the same problem persisting election after election, regardless which party wins. As an AFT teacher, I hope leadership will address the solution — exposing the backroom deals and revolving doors, the undue influence of billionaire non-educators who flood campaigns with cash and quid-pro-quos that seem illegal but apparently are not.

We need education to be a TOP ISSUE in elections, in all televised debates and to make candidates take firm stands on privatization, testing laws and funding inequity. We need to call out the greed and class war in BOTH parties.