Education Action Committee Report

League of Women Voters^®
of Schenectady County

Education Committee Report December 2011. Education Consensus Meetings. Annual Report of the Education Committee: June 2011.

Education Committee Report December 2011

Submitted by Mary Maitino, Education Committee Chair
The Education Committee has been working on the LWVUS Education Study and The Role of the Federal Government in Public Education, Pre-K-Gr.12. We started receiving information from the LWVUS Education Study Committee in April and have been gathering relevant information since. This culminated in the Consensus Meeting held on the evening of November 15th at the First United Methodist Church in Schenectady. ( For a synopsis of the evening's discussions, please see President Joan Elliott's article above.)
Thank you to all of the Schenectady LWV members who attended the Consensus Meeting. It was a long evening, but everyone participated through to the very last question. Everyoneʼs presence and support made our efforts worthwhile.
There are many people to thank for the success of our Education Study Consensus: Joan Elliott, Schenectady LWV President with her former experience with LWV studies guided us through the process. Connie Young made the location arrangements. Sue Wheeler posted the sources of information on our website Nancy Synder facilitated our meeting and kept us all on track enabling us to finish in one evening Carol Furman, recorded our responses to the questions, as well as our comments and will submit the results to the LWVUS Pat McKinnon assisted by Cheryl Nechamen, organized the Powerpoint Presentation. The First United Methodist Church, kindly allowed us to use their Fellowship Hall and their projection equipment for our meeting.
The Education Committee: Maxine Borom, Vicki Bremer, Joan Elliott, Helen MacDonald, Pat MacKinnon, Cheryl Nechamen, Johanna Peterson, Mary Pritchard, and Jean Wilkinson. spent many hours researching, studying, and presenting the information. Many of the committee members printed the materials necessary for the meeting and provided food for our enjoyment.

Education Consensus Meetings

We have set aside two evening dates for our Education Study Consensus Meetings: Tuesday, November 15 and Thursday, November 17 (only if a second meeting is necessary)
The Education Study Consensus Questions will be published in the October Bulletin. Our LWV luncheon on at Noon on Wednesday, September 14, at the Stockade Inn in Schenectady will feature David Little from the NYS School Boards Association. His topic will be The Role of the Federal Government in Public Education, which is the topic of the Education Study. A Q & A will follow. Anyone interested in helping us unravel this issue please contact marimay67@gmail.com. ________________________________________

Annual Report of the Education Committee: June 2011

Submitted by Education Chair Mary Maitino
The Education Committee has been busy this year. In January, we joined the Save Our Schools campaign against NYS legislation that would have approved, midyear, diverting millions of dollars of added public funds to Charter Schools. In March, members joined The Committee of 100 to rally for adequate funding of education in the proposed 2011-2012 NYS Budget. Visits were scheduled to speak with our local representatives about the devastating effect the proposed budget would have on students across NYS, particularly those in poor urban and rural districts. We also participated in a rally.
We are participating in this year's LWVUS Education Study of the role of the federal government in education. In preparation for the study, we scheduled a number of events.
(1) In March, Schenectady Schools Superintendent John Yagielski spoke at a LWV sponsored public meeting. He explained the difficulties of constructing a school budget. He discussed the various income sources for public schools, such as the federal and state governments, and local property taxes, as well as grants.
(2) We showed the documentary film, Waiting for Superman. Dr. Catherine Snyder, of the Union College Graduate School of Education led a discussion of the film.
(3) Many of us are reading The Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch, and The Flat World and Education by Linda Darling Hammond.
(4) In May, a public Candidates' Forum was held. Schenectady Board of Education candidates participated in answering questions submitted by audience members. Many thanks to Connie Young for scheduling the events, and to Gywnne DeLong who handled the publicity, as well as the many others who worked on the Candidates' Forum. Thanks also to Roberta Steiner for doing a wonderful job moderating the Forum again this year.

Comments, suggestions, questions? Contact our webmaster. Last revised: January 19, 2012 20:14 PST.