Inform, Support, Inspire: Promoting Policies for a Fully Funded and Effective Public School System

The Grassroots Education Movement (GEMNYC) educates, organizes, and mobilizes educators, parents, students and communities to defend public education. Too many current corporate and government policies seek to underfund, undermine and privatize our public school system. GEM advocates around issues dealing with the equality and quality of public educational services as well as the rights of teachers and school workers. These issues include the incessant push for charter schools, the attack on union rights, the focus on high-stakes standardized testing, school closures, and the failure to address the racism and inequality that exists within our schools. As the attacks on public education and teachers grow more vicious, the collective organization of those who directly face these attacks at the grassroots level becomes all the more essential, and in fact constitutes the most effective potential resistance. GEM advocates for a positive vision of education reform by building alliances with other activist groups and organizing and helping coordinate the struggle at the grassroots school and community level, with a focus on school-level organizing.

Our vision of a fully funded, democratic, public education system that is accountable to the public it is intended to serve includes the following real reforms:

Reform #1:  Smaller Class Sizes
Reform #2:  Excellent Community Public Schools for ALL Children
Reform #3:  More Teaching – Less Testing
Reform #4:  Parent and Teacher Empowerment and Leadership
Reform #5:  Equitable Funding for ALL Schools
Reform #6:  Anti-Racist Education Policies
Reform #7:  Culturally Relevant Curriculum
Real Reform #8:  Expand Pre Kindergarten and Early Intervention Programs
Real Reform #9:  Qualified and Experienced Educators and Educational Leaders
Real Reform #10:  Democratic and Social Justice Unionism

We hold general meetings/educational events once a month. As attacks on teachers and public workers are ricocheting all over the country, it is increasingly important for all of us to join forces and fight back. We are evolving and we invite you to participate in our growth. Please read out points of unity and join us for our next meeting.