With the release of the RFP (the contract application for Community-Based Centers to receive PreK For All funding), it is clear that any hope of equitable reforms that we were given by the Department of Education are non existent. Chief among our concerns: 1. The average cost per child remains stagnant. 2. No increase in salaries, which will continue to impede our ability to maintain qualified staff. 3. We are strongly encouraged to provide health insurance and retirement plans though they offer no resources for these exorbitant costs. 4. The life of a contract has now increased from three to five years and the DOE can impose three one year extensions. This means that there will be no funding increase for eight years. 5. Unneeded and wasteful expansion of Pre-K in DOE buildings will continue, which impacts our enrollment. Community-based organizations like ours have been the backbone of the early childhood community in NYC for generations. When the DOE needed us as their partners, we provided. When the mayor needed to reach his goal of serving 70,000 children, we provided. Again and again, the DOE has come to us when they needed us and now we are being dismissed and ignored as this monopoly of education suffocates us. Keep small preschools alive! If you agree with this, please sign this petition, as the Preliminary Budget Hearing for Education is scheduled for Wednesday, March 20, 2019. It is our hope that our organizations can continue to work together with the DOE in serving the needs of young children and their families.

To get rid of Capital Punishment in the United States

It is not enough for President Trump to merely send thoughts and prayers. The President called neo-nazis and white nationalists ‘very fine people.’ This hate-filled murderer drew inspiration from Trump, and the white nationalist movement has celebrated Trump’s words and policies. The President needs to immediately and unequivocally condemn and disavow this attacker and the white nationalist movement. Elected officials and law enforcement must do more to protect our community and all Americans from the white nationalist threat by calling on FBI Director Christopher Wray to prioritize the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of right-wing, white nationalist violence—the most significant threat to public safety in our nation today. Social media platforms and tech companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google need to do much more to detect and shut down online hate content. The New Zealand shooter was able to livestream a 17-minute video of his murderous rampage that continues to spread like wildfire online. This is flatly unacceptable. Tech companies must take all steps possible to prevent something like this from happening again. Further, hate groups have long used platforms like Facebook to organize, spread their violent messages and build their membership online. Facebook needs to do more to remove these hate groups before they inspire even more harm. With historic levels of hate crimes motivated by anti-Muslim bigotry in recent years here in the U.S., American Muslims have sadly been through so much. We will not allow this attack or this hate movement to prevent any of us from going about our daily lives, including attending our houses of worship and engaging with our communities. Together, with allied Americans of faith and goodwill, we will persevere and we will defeat hate.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act showered billions of dollars on the wealthiest Americans and mega-corporations, but largely left out millions of working families, many of whom are feeling the pain of unexpectedly smaller tax refunds or even owing additional taxes! Rather than continuing to give trillions of dollars away in tax cuts to mega-corporations and cutting our healthcare, nutrition, and education in order to pay for them, Congress should repeal this upside down, harmful law and instead concentrate its efforts on strengthening working family credits so parents can better care for their families and become more financially secure.

Throughout its coverage of the 2016 elections journalists dictated the information we received based on stories that would generate the most sales revenue. This resulted in a lack of information about the candidates and their positions on topics that actually mattered, an unbalanced amount of reporting on the candidates, and an obsessive focus on specially selected topics. Journalists wrote more about the Clinton- email scandal than all of Trump’s scandals combined. They commented on who had the best chance of winning and what the general public was saying about each candidate rather than reporting on candidates proposed policies.

I’m an elementary educator in Massachusetts public schools, retiring in June after 22 years of teaching. I’m also a mom. I know too well, from all angles, the painful impact of Massachusetts’ inability to fully fund our schools. Here are a few snapshots: when I started teaching first grade in 1997, I had 14 students and a full time bilingual aide. Twelve years later, I had 26 students and no aide. Among those 26 students, I had more English language learners (many of them newcomers to English), more students with learning disabilities, and more students suffering from childhood trauma. I am currently a Title 1 Math teacher, but even teaching eight groups a day, I can only serve half the grades in my school. My school needs two of me. My math intervention is extremely effective in getting children up to grade level so they will not need an IEP, but I can only provide services in first, second and third grade because there’s only one of me. There is an urgent public education funding crisis facing Massachusetts. That’s why I’m rallying with students, family members, community members, educators, principals, school staff, and local elected officials, on the streets and at the State House next week to urge passage of the PROMISE Act, which will increase state education aid by $1 billion per year for preK-12 public schools. I will be taking a personal day on Friday, March 22 and making a five hour bus trip to Boston and back to testify before the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Education to seize this generational opportunity to fully fund our schools. Please join me in demanding action from our lawmakers for fair and equitable public education for every student in the Commonwealth. Back in 2015, the bipartisan Massachusetts Foundation Budget Review Commission found that the Commonwealth’s public school funding formula is woefully outdated and that state spending is way too low. Remember, the formula for education spending hasn’t been updated since 1993! This has created crises at the local level with cities and towns and our schools having to make drastic cuts, all of which harm our children’s education. It’s time to say ENOUGH! The Promise Act, filed by Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz (D-Boston) and by Reps. Aaron Vega (D-Holyoke) and Mary Keefe (D-Worcester), would over a period of time implement the five core recommendations of the Commission. The bulk of the additional funds would go to districts with the greatest need and fewest resources. The formula would be changed to: **Realistically account for districts’ health care costs. **Provide adequate support for English learners and low income students. **Account for special education costs. **Mitigate losses to charter schools. The bill is also structured to ensure that **every district** benefits during the phase-in of reforms and that no one type of reform is front-loaded or back-loaded. And, of course we also have to account for the unique and pressing needs of rural schools like regional transportation and declining enrollment, an effort that gained ground last year, but must go much further this session. We live in precarious times. An educated, creative, hard-working and compassionate citizenry is the best hope for our future. If we shortchange our schools, we weaken our democracy and jeopardize our future. It’s time to fund our future now. Please—for all our children—call for this major reinvestment in public education to happen in time for local communities to include the funding in the next academic year’s budget. We can begin to repair the persistent education inequity that often exists between students in one community and those in the city or town right next door.

Recently, the Board of Directors of the Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy (JBHA) announced that it would no longer recognize the teachers' union, withdrawing the ability of the JBHA teachers to bargain collectively. The teachers, however, wish to maintain their union. We stand with the teachers. Their ability to unionize ensures the ongoing academic excellence of JBHA and is an expression of core Jewish values. Recognition of the Faculty Association enacts two central Jewish values, the duty to impart Jewish teachings (Talmud Torah) and the duty to protect the interests of workers. Religious authorities across the spectrum of Jewish life affirm that unions are consistent with Jewish teachings: Among Orthodox authorities, Rabbi Eliezer Waldenburg recognizes the rights of workers to strike. (She’elot u’Teshuvot of the Tzitz Eliezer 2:23; this ruling does not extend to Torah teachers, but applies to teachers of other subjects.) The Reform movement has a long-standing commitment to labor unions, with the Central Conference of American Rabbis resolving in 1921, "Under the present organization of society, labor's only safeguard against a retrogression to former inhuman standards is the union." In 2008, the Committee on Law and Standards of the Conservative Movement passed a decision authored by Rabbi Jill Jacobs that says, in part: “Jewish employers should allow their employees to make their own independent decisions about whether to unionize.” We contend that JBHA will be best positioned for the future by embodying Jewish values and by embracing its teachers as full partners in its educational mission. We call on the Board to reconsider its decision and to recognize the JBHA Faculty Association.

Recently, the Board of Directors of the Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy (JBHA) announced that it would no longer recognize the teachers' union, withdrawing the ability of the JBHA teachers to bargain collectively. The teachers, however, wish to maintain their union. We stand with the teachers. Their ability to unionize ensures the ongoing academic excellence of JBHA and is an expression of core Jewish values. Recognition of the Faculty Association enacts two central Jewish values, the duty to impart Jewish teachings (Talmud Torah) and the duty to protect the interests of workers. Religious authorities across the spectrum of Jewish life affirm that unions are consistent with Jewish teachings: Among Orthodox authorities, Rabbi Eliezer Waldenburg recognizes the rights of workers to strike. (She’elot u’Teshuvot of the Tzitz Eliezer 2:23; this ruling does not extend to Torah teachers, but applies to teachers of other subjects.) The Reform movement has a long-standing commitment to labor unions, with the Central Conference of American Rabbis resolving in 1921, "Under the present organization of society, labor's only safeguard against a retrogression to former inhuman standards is the union." In 2008, the Committee on Law and Standards of the Conservative Movement passed a decision authored by Rabbi Jill Jacobs that says, in part: “Jewish employers should allow their employees to make their own independent decisions about whether to unionize.” We contend that JBHA will be best positioned for the future by embodying Jewish values and by embracing its teachers as full partners in its educational mission. We call on the Board to reconsider its decision and to recognize the JBHA faculty association.

I love dogs. Too often they are purchased, bred and subjected to torturous experiments, frequently resulting in death. There is no justification for such abuse.

This is a clear case of intentional Animal Abuse, and not even the tip of the iceberg according to HSUS. More info: https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/03/13/beagles-fungicides-michigan-lab/3144769002/

It is for Challenge Class. You also shouldn't call people names that they don't like. You should stand up for yourself and others or the hate will go on.

Trump's latest budget proposal would increase Pentagon spending to an inexplicable $750 billion next year, while cutting Medicare and Medicaid. Last year, the Pentagon spent $22 million of taxpayer money on lobster tail. The Pentagon also failed its first-ever comprehensive audit in November. A department that has spent trillions of dollars in the past decade can't explain where all the money has gone. Spending billions of dollars on war (and lobster tail apparently) is seen as perfectly acceptable while those in power try to count every penny when it comes to comprehensive domestic programs like Medicare for All or free college. It's time to set our priorities straight. And progressive leaders, those currently in power and those vying for president, must make it absolutely clear that our priorities are to invest in programs that make the world a better place––from international initiatives to stem climate change to domestic programs providing Medicare for everyone. Sign the petition to let current and future elected progressives know they must commit to reallocating the excessive Pentagon budget.