This petition is about students who need teachers to help them with their learning disabilities. I have a learning disability and I had to share books in school because we couldn't have our own.

My daughter went to law school and incurred huge debt. She works for a small firm and does not work for a high paying corporate firm. She does this to be there for her children while her husband, a teacher, is incurring expenses pursuing a PhD. They will be in student loan debt forever if they don't get relief. Please do not forget this segment of the population while addressing student loan forgiveness.

My name is David and i am a senior in high school. I am trying to go to a college in the state of Georgia. They have alot of scholarships provided for people trying to go to college but creating more and better scholarships through social media would give a higher percentage of people a chance to experience the college life and going on to persue their careers.

As a result of Hurricane Sandy, thousands of children in NYS will lose weeks of instructional time in school. Many will have to transfer to different districts due to the loss of their homes or destruction of their own school buildings. The upheaval caused by the storm will negatively impact their ability to learn. Results from tests taken under such devastating circumstances cannot possibly be accurate and will be a waste of educational time and taxpayer money. We are calling on the Governor Cuomo, the State Legislature and the State Education Department to skip the state assessments this year.

All moneys collected from the new casinos shall go in addition to the state contribution of this year. There shall be not "state reduction" in the buget.

Why is there a 15-million-dollar focus at the Department of Defense to educate children of the poor in 2013? (As part of NDAA, HR4310)

Voters outside of King County have just approved I-1240, Charter Schools. Charter Schools waste taxpayer money, and have failed to demonstrate any success over traditional public schools.In fact, while only 17% of charters show better results than public schools, 38% do worse. A recent study called them "engines of racial segregation". Well, if voters outside King Co. want them, let them have them. But if they want to waste our insufficient tax dollars on charter schools, they should NOT be getting $0.40 of every levy dollar we tax ourselves in Seattle. We should repeal the Levy Equalization Legislation, and keep our local levy money in local schools, NOT outsourced to failed experiments.

As a teacher for 20 years, I have seen how the curriculum offered to most children has narrowed over that time. Many California children have no instruction in dance, music, theatre or visual arts in their schools. The California state legislature can help turn the tide on this issue by explicitly instructing the California Department of Education and school districts throughout California to 1. hold schools accountable for providing arts instruction to all students and 2. affirmatively state that state and federal categorical funds can and should be used to support standards-based arts instruction.

Having spent more than 25 years working in public education I am concerned that the "reforms" championed by US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, will ruin public eduation while opening up the "market" to privatization. Follow the money. Who benefits from producing tests, evaluating tests, and publicizing test results? Who stands to suffer? Is this reform? A NY State child now starts the year being tested by her teachers in every subject so as to "prove" that the child knows little in order to create a favorable comparison for the end of the year. Is our goal to improve drop-out rates of students and teachers?

I am a former graduate from ITT Technical Institute and received my Associates Degree in Computer Network Systems in July 2006. Now it's November 2012 and I have no job leading to any IT position. The only jobs I were only able to obtain are "minimum wage" jobs. With $20,000 in debt, student loans doubled in 6 years, and searching for something that doesn't exist I feel robbed out of a education. According to the student loan act it should be discharged if I didn't benefit from the education, which I haven't. Why am I working mininum wage $8.25/hr jobs? When I first saw the ITT Tech commercial in 2002 I thought it would be a excellent choice to further my career, but now 10 years later it's a disaster. My student loans are currently in deferment and my wages are being garnished. I'm struggling as is it and these people won't get off my back. The economy has went to booming to people losing their jobs in groves and I'm affected by all this.

I believe that if State Education officials had to work directly in a classroom (teach), they would finally leave their "ivory tower" and truly experience what educators are facing on a daily basis. Rude students, un-cooperative administrators, over crowded classrooms and testing instead of teaching. Members of The N.Y.S .Board of Regents are constantly coming up with paperwork and tests in order to "look busy". Yes we teachers recognize the lazy way out, creating "busy work". Get Up! Get Out! Reach into classrooms across the state before you dump more silly paperwork and tests on teachers and their students.

The EKU student body was notified by email of a financial aid refund policy change on 31 October, 2012. This change proposes to begin distributing financial aid refunds at least a full 14 days later in the semester than they have in the past. A penalty placed on a majority of students for a minority that may spend their money too quickly or irresponsibly should not be implemented. If permanent reversal is not considered, we ask that the poor timing of such a policy change be taken into consideration and delay the effective date until Fall 2013. A 2-month notice is not enough for the typical, employed college student to save the hundreds or thousands of dollars necessary to cover school and living costs over that time. Availability of funds during one of the most expensive times of the year is vital to most students who may not even be employed, and gives the responsible majority the ability to start a new semester focused solely on their education at Eastern Kentucky University. We ask that the EKU Financial Aid and Student Accounting departments reconsider implementing this Student Refund Policy change in Spring '13, in consideration for the financial hardships it will incur on the majority of EKU students.