In case you haven’t seen it elsewhere, I’m putting it here: a bunch of us will be standing in the cold starting tomorrow at 4:30 PM to protest the $50 million proposed budget cuts from the Boston Public Schools’ budget. We don’t have the backing of The Boston Foundation, the Gates Foundation, The Barr Foundations, or any of the other people trying to destroy public education with the complicity of our elected officials. All we’ve got is ourselves and our voices. So bring ’em.
This isn’t just about the schools: it’s about whether Boston is going to be an actual city where people make their homes and raise their families, or whether it’s going to be some kind of dystopian Disneyland for rich 20somethings who live in the new luxury buildings until they can afford a single-family in Wellesley.
These budget cuts are a planned injustice on a massive scale. Please come out and add your voice to the small, vocal, and entrenched group of Bostonians who want the city to work for everyone. Here’s the info.
. . . and the Governor will come throwing money at you.
Why $50 million for 54 thousand students is an absolute bargain!
Investing in education also has pretty good “ripple effect” (Globe‘s words), more so than building a fancy new corporate headquarters.
And people used to be pissed that Cambridge spent 25k per student. And it’s unlikely the payroll taxes will recover that initial loss, so it’s not a needed investment. GE turned down better incentives from New York to come here. It’s because we have a highly educated workforce, a burgeoning innovation district, and the capabilities they already need.
Remember that price tag now that they are cutting aid to our most vulnerable schools, they will raise T fares, and they are cutting another hundred million or so from essential state services. If your a Boston resident and your property taxes are going up, remember GE won’t be paying theirs for quite some time thanks to Marty and Charlie.
the vast majority of those jobs will be transfers from CT, not new hires from MA. That makes the math of dollars per job even tougher. Plus, the $50 million is in this one budget year, while the $145 million is over a much longer period, but still…
About a hundred parents, students, and teachers showed up and marched around in the bitter cold for a couple of hours. Somebody brought hot chocolate and soup! My chant “Public schools get decimated, corporations get fellated” didn’t catch on (okay, okay, it stayed safely inside my brain), but overall it felt like we got something done.
It was very encouraging to see the number of people willing and able to come out in the cold during prime “pick up the kids” hours. For the first time in a long time, I felt hopeful.
Byron Rushing was there, and one elected official walked with us for one circuit. That was Tito Jackson.He didn’t chant and was conversing with someone the whole time, but I understood very well the statement he was making, especially when a bunch of other councilors scurried in to the speech just as the protest was breaking up,thus avoiding having people call out to them and having to take a side.
This is just the beginning.