Because my daughter-in-law is still paying off her student loan, she cannot afford to buy a home & is otherwise unable to make purchases which could help to revive the economy. House and Senate members who want to DO something to stimulate the economy, not just play blame games & talk, talk, talk, should ACT now. Relieve students and their families of burdensome debt, & revive growth.

The Governor's interference in education has cost our children in Detroit, unequal funding and quality education.

I am a Service Connected Disabled Veteran. I was expelled under a pretext. UMKC wanted to make me go away. The Department of Education wanted me to stop filing charges that they were allowing the directors of Civil Rights departments to work for the very Universities that they were suppose to regulate. I did nothing wrong but advocate for disabled students, ask for a disabled student council, and ask where was all the Federal funding for Disabled Students. I need your signature to tell Universities around the country that Disabled Students in Higher Education have rights. We have a right to accommodations. We have civil rights that are supposed to be enforced by the Department of Education.

Many citizens of Rockville are very concerned about the rush, on the part of some Council members, to weaken the City's Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance/Standards (APFO/APFS). This is an issue about which many in the community feel passionately, because our APFO is essential for the protection of the education of our children. In Rockville, the APFO stops developers from building more apartments and adding more children to schools already well over capacity. Weakening it will have adverse consequences for the quality of life in our neighborhoods, including forcing the Montgomery County school system to teach children in portables, not classrooms. Montgomery County is already behind by 22 schools - how many more schools will be needed if the APFO is trampled by development interests? In the recent past there have been numerous attempts by development interests to water down or eliminate our APFO/APFS, but everyone who has studied the issue, including the APFO task force, the Planning Commission, and previous Mayor and Councils, have kept our strong City standards in place. But now our APFO is in jeopardy, due to the unfortunate efforts of several City Council members. This most recent proposal would weaken the current APFS standards by changing them to Montgomery County's standards, the most lax in the State of Maryland. Three inadvisable changes are being proposed: first, weakening the school test to allow 120% overcrowding in our schools; second, permitting "averaging" of overcrowding across an entire school cluster to water down the statistics from highly overcrowded individual schools; and finally, changing the "test period" from 2 to 5 years, which essentially allows developers to get credit for new school capacity which may never be funded or built. We believe that the proposed changes will severely diminish the quality of education our students will receive. Overcrowded schools are already a huge problem, and now is not the time to make the problem worse. Rockville's current strong APFO is a vital planning tool at the City's disposal to make sure that new residential development does not overwhelm our schools and roads. Please join us in standing up and making our collective voice heard. Tell the Mayor and Council to keep our City's APFO strong!

The new campus will be three quarters the size of the current UC Berkeley campus once complete, and could transform one of the most disadvantaged communities in all of California. Richmond, a community made up of 83% people of color and where 1 in 3 children live in poverty, has a long history of environmental degradation, poor public health outcomes, lack of affordable housing, poorly performing public schools and a severe shortage of good middle class jobs. The University of California has an opportunity, and the ability, to help lift out of poverty a community where real economic opportunity has remained out of reach for the majority of its residents. Therefore we call on the University of California to sign a legally binding community benefits agreement that includes: Housing: Invest in an Anti-Displacement Fund to subsidize the development of affordable housing units and protect low income tenants. Training: Invest in training programs to ensure that local and disadvantaged workers develop skills for professions on the Richmond Bay Campus. Living Wage: Institute a living wage policy to lift all workers out of poverty at the Berkeley Global Campus. Construction Jobs: Sign a Project Labor Agreement with the Contra Costa Building Trades Council that ensures union representation and includes local hire language. Permanent Employment: Ensure jobs similarly performed at UC's Berkeley campus covered by collective bargaining agreements remain UC jobs at the new campus. Small Business: Invest in and enhance opportunities for small businesses. Education: Invest in a Youth Opportunity and Education Fund for Pre K-12 and community college students to help build career pathways.

The RIF plan is going to ruin Brookdale. Tuition needs to increase (as it should) in order to keep Brookdale as the great college that it is. This tuition increase could save the college. If tuition does not increase by $15 a credit, and nothing is done to stop the RIF, Brookdale will fall apart, and it is unfair to the students.

As a school community, Cambridge CSD has already made significant reductions to critical components of our annual school budget as rising costs outpaced revenue. Staff positions, class sections, and services have been reduced for students at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. We are working together as a district to make difficult decisions and reduce spending. Now we need your continued support to ensure the adopted state budget upholds the funding promises made to school districts across the state, by eliminating the GEA. This year alone (in the 2014-15 state aid calculations), Cambridge lost $891,670 in funding that was promised to our district, but taken back to balance the state budget. Every year since 2009, Cambridge has lost an average of over one million dollars to the GEA, and this disturbing trend must be addressed. We ask you to take immediate action to prevent long-term negative effects on the quality of public education for Cambridge students. Abolish the Gap Elimination Adjustment in this year’s state budget.

These institutions should distance themselves from their role in the CIA torture program in the strongest possible way.

I have not been personally affected by bullying; however, I do work with children who have been bullied at school or in their community. The effects of bullying on these young lives is horrible. These children fear going to school, which should be a safe place to learn and grow. These children live in fear of their bullies and learn to self hate. Bullying is an issue that needs to be stopped; we need to build up our youth NOT let them tear each other apart. Maybe if our youth learned how to be more respectful, kind and accepting of others' differences from the start, in their adulthood there could be less hate.

I have not been personally affected by bullying; however, I do work with children who have been bullied at school or in their community. What bullying does to these young lives is horrible. These children fear going to school, which should be a safe place to learn and grow. These children live in fear of their bullies and learn to self hate. Bullying is an issue that needs to be stopped; we need to build up our youth NOT let them tear each other apart. Maybe if our youth learned how to be more respectful, kind and accepting of others differences from the start in their adult future there could be less hate.

Connecticut deserves a qualified educator to head its Department of Education to preserve public education and to implement policies that are best practices and researched-based.

Aloha Aina = Decentralize the Hawaii Department of Education We call on the immediate resignation of State Superintendent, Kathryn Matayoshi, for (the people’s opinion) poor leadership qualities and for harnessing a toxic organizational culture Failed Impetus of Hawai'i's State Government I'm an Independent constituent who is an expert in applied systemic theory. With clear conscious, the State of Hawai’i’s government is imperiling due to the mismanaged structure of its Department of Education. The Department of Education accounts for about half of the State’s budget. This means its equivalent in size to the Executive Branch and to some extent the State’s Superintendent is as powerful as the governor. As an individual who has worked in Special Education, some of my colleagues are tired of legislators probing the lack of funds available to this department. Some of my colleagues at HSTA (teachers and principals) are tired of the distress that centralized education yields. This yield indicates there are too many managers and not enough front line workforce employees; thus, the deficiency of educational services. Furthermore, DAGS lacks the capital for improvements. Children shouldn't have to sit in classrooms with 30 or more students in decaying environments. This legislative session the people call for decentralization of the Department of Education and want to empower their Complex Area Superintendents, as well as their communities to have the resources to provide Hawai’i’s children with a high caliber of education in a healthy platform. We call on the immediate resignation of State Superintendent, Kathryn Matayoshi, for (the people’s opinion) poor leadership and for harnessing a toxic organizational culture. This restructure will do several things. First, vet toxicity out of the Department of Education with too many managers and provide DAGS with capital improvement equity to provide harmonious workplaces and high quality learning environments. Furthermore, this initiative will increase the number of front line employees, such as more teachers (help with attrition), empower Complex Area Superintendents, and communities to take ownership of their students’ learning. This will put a little common sense back into the Department of Education by not putting schools in toxic areas, such as where Monsanto and DuPont operate. True leadership would understand the profound impacts this has for children and State employees or at least be the necessary change to secure their safety.