How many candidates for Board of Education will crash barbecues this weekend begging for votes? Better yet maybe they should bring along a barbie when they canvass neighborhoods for votes. That way voters can swipe a page from Wimpy: “I’ll gladly vote for you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” Yeah baby, where’s the beef? Come Tuesday we’ll find out. The nine school board candidates for Tuesday’s special election aren’t alone urging voter turnout. The education reform group www.excelbridgeport.org has lit-dropped neighborhoods, bodegas, businesses, community organizations, and libraries including the information below:
Bridgeport children deserve a fair opportunity to succeed in life. Right now our students are not receiving that opportunity. They deserve better. Our city does too. The quality of our public schools not only impacts our students and families, but also our impacts our property taxes. As Bridgeport taxpayers, we deserve better.
Together, voters in Bridgeport can change this by selecting Board of Education leaders who will dramatically improve the schools for our children.
As we approach the September 4 special election for the Board of Education, we offer these answers to the questions we get asked a lot:
1. How does the Board of Education impact children?
The Board of Education is responsible for making decisions that impact the education of 20,000 Bridgeport kids in our public schools.
They decide how the money is spent, so they determine what kind of textbooks our kids will have, if they’ll have art and music classes, how many teachers they’ll have, how much technology they’ll have in the schools.
They create the policies that affect our students, so they determine how safe, happy, and welcoming our schools are for kids and parents.
They hire and supervise the superintendent, so they make sure that the superintendent does an excellent job educating our kids.
2. What is it like to be a student in Bridgeport right now?
Only a quarter of our elementary school students read at grade level. Researchers have found that children who struggle to read by the third grade will probably never catch up.
Only one in 10 of our high school students perform at grade level–the worst rate in the entire State of Connecticut.
Only half of Bridgeport students graduate from high school. And those who do are not prepared for college or the workplace.
3. What could it be like in 10 years if we have an effective school board?
Student in Bridgeport perform as well as students in nearby towns like Fairfield, Trumbull and Westport.
90% of students graduate from high school.
20,000 students across the district on a path for success in whatever field they choose.
Read more of our vision for a fair education in Excel Bridgeport’s Vision 2022.
4. What does an effective Board of Education look like?
They have to work together to solve problems in order to improve the education for our students.
They must talk with parents and listen to parents so that parents are the heart of our effort to improve our schools.
They need the skills and knowledge to use our money wisely because money is scarce, and we can’t be wasteful.
5. How would an effective board impact our community, even if we don’t have kids?
Better schools increase the value of your home. They attract more middle class families who buy homes and lower the tax burden on each homeowner. Lower taxes and better schools attract businesses and jobs, which pay more into the pot and reduce each individual’s tax burden.
6. What do I need to do to get ready for the Board of Education elections?
Learn about the election. Click here to read about all of the candidates and to where and when you can see them speak.
Know when you’ll vote and how you get to the voting location. Click here to find your polling place.
Go to the polls with a fellow voter so together we can improve the schools!
Bring my children with me to vote so they know I want the best education for them. After you vote, send us your picture at shana.hurley@excelbridgeport.org and we’ll share it with our community. You can inspire others.
What we don’t need is another group telling us how to run our school system. Part of this group was in on the demise of the sitting group of BOE elected people. There are e-mails I have read where at least one of their directors was a conspirator in the BOE takeover.
Putting the three town committee nominees on the board would be a disaster. It would be like putting three bobblehead dolls on the board who only know how to say yes to Finch proposals.
No one in this group will talk about how four years of underfunding the BOE by Finch and company has affected the kids of Bridgeport. No one will talk about how the hiring of the past two BOE school supers Salcedo and Ramos was done to be politically correct. In both cases the best person available for the job was not selected.
Giving Finch carte blanche in picking the BOE members would be tantamount to setting back education decades.
Excel Bridgeport should be ignored, this is nothing more than a power grab by this group.
Regardless of how anyone feels about proposed education reforms, you can harvest one salient conclusion about the knowledge of these people when it comes to the average Bridgeport resident: Clueless.
We feel people should be informed about this vote. Here is what one person had to say about the election and charter revision.
www .youtube.com/watch?v=NcZ-i5-lcrA
They write this diatribe thinking if you use these many words you have to be smart.
But if they really were smart they would use a hell of a lot fewer words and maybe someone would read it.
Paging JML. Could you teach these people something about editing?
Ask Mario Testa what he thinks an effective BOE is. He will tell you one that does exactly what Mario tells them to do. And that is the board Excel Bridgeport is trying to get elected.
For people who think they are pretty smart they are proving they are really STUPID.
If the handpicked DTC people get on the BoE, Mario will tell you who to pick for all the School Building Contracts … end of story.
Here is a comment from a BOE candidate…
www .youtube.com/watch?v=UWXdlriRbeA
The problem with your interview with Moales is you did not ask him about his conflict of interest as it relates to serving on the BOE.
His daycare program receives funds from the city and he just received a number of pre-K placements. He has no business running for this office, in fact he should not have been appointed to the board at all.
Moales is the poster child for Bridgeport political corruption. It can’t be wrong unless it is proven so. And the city of Bridgeport will do everything in its power to make sure it isn’t proven. Vote corruption. Vote the Top Line.
Bullet vote Bags & Babs only.
We asked a state-appointed board member what they thought about the takeover and what that board achieved. She also happens to be endorsed by the CT Post today.
www .youtube.com/watch?v=DL6kjXtoCDo
*** Praise the good lord and all the future perks that may follow down the path of political righteousness today and in the coming days of the Bpt BOE, no? *** FORGETABOUTIT ***