ALBANY, NY (February 1, 2018) — In honor of Black History Month, the Alliance for Quality Education is proud to join state legislators in proclaiming February 2018 “Education Justice Is Racial Justice Month” in New York State.

State Senator Kevin Parker, Assemblymember and Chairwoman of the Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators Latrice Walker, and Assemblymember Charles Barron each issued a formal proclamation today. Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic, and Asian Legislative Caucus Chair Nick Perry is scheduled to release one later this week.

The proclamations recognize that “Systemic racism has shortchanged entire school districts of low-income, resource-poor communities with large black, brown and immigrant student populations, …and in order to equip communities to overcome systemic racism it is essential that the state provides educational equity.”

The proclamations also acknowledge that the State’s own failure to fund the Foundation Aid formula, the equitable school funding formula set in place as a result of the Campaign for Fiscal equity lawsuit in 2007, “preserves systemic racism in New York State by locking educational inequality in place.”

In honor of this declaration, AQE today kicked off 28 days of action for the month of February, beginning with a petition addressed to Governor Andrew Cuomo urging him to address educational racism and economic inequity by fully funding the Foundation Aid formula in the State’s final budget this year. In his executive budget released last month, Governor Cuomo proposed only $338 million for Foundation Aid, a small percentage of what was recommended by the New York State Board of Regents to maintain services.