It is time to invest strongly in our public schools. Not as a slogan, but by putting real resources and real decision-making power back where they belong: with our students, our parents and our teachers.
That is the heart of how I will represent the families of this district in Albany. Because a great school is not built in City Hall or Albany – it’s built by parents who show up, students who are given the tools to reach higher, and the teachers and school staff who make our schools function every day. They all deserve the resources, support and respect to do their jobs well. Parents and teachers should not be pitted against each other; we all have the same goals so we must be partners in helping every child succeed.
The strongest schools I have ever visited share one thing in common: parents are involved. The PTA is full. Parents know the principal and teachers by name, and the principal knows he answers to them. Too often, parents are treated as an afterthought, handed decisions that were already made. I will change that. I will be a partner to our parent leaders, help families cut through a system that talks past them, and fight to give parents a real voice in what and how their children are taught. When parents are empowered, schools and students thrive.
Then we need to empower our students. Learning cannot end at three o’clock, especially for working families who need those extra hours. I will push hard for our fair share of the Empire State After-School Program funds, which sends real dollars to high-need students for homework help, enrichment, and a safe place to be after the bell.
Those after-school hours in the school building can be a critical time for our students, not only for the direct opportunities it provides, but also by giving kids better, safer, and healthier things to do to stay on the right track. So we must make sure students have afterschool groups to belong to. Whether a young person’s world is rooted in their faith, their heritage, sports, or some other shared passion, they deserve a home base at school to gather, to take pride in who they are, and then to learn from classmates whose story is different from their own. Every community should have that base, and every student should get the chance to get to know the others. That is how you raise young people who are both confident in themselves and open to their neighbors. I want our kids out on field trips too, from the Museum of Jewish Heritage to the African Burial Ground, seeing the history around them up close instead of only reading about it.
Here is why I can deliver where others have not. Assembly District 23 sits almost entirely inside a single school district, Community School District 27. That means as your assemblymember, I can focus every single day on the same schools your children attend, instead of splitting attention across a patchwork of neighborhoods. While the Assembly does not run the school system, it creates the policies and budgets that our schools work under, providing the tools that can make a student succeed. The state has an obligation to make sure our district gets its fair share of funding. We should begin by updating that formula to better account for students who need additional resources to succeed — including English-language learners, students who need extra academic support or specialized services, and removing barriers so families have access to the resources to succeed. That is progress, but districts like ours still can never afford to lose ground. Our families pay their taxes and work hard. The least they should expect is schools that get their fair share to give our kids the chance to succeed. I will fight to keep that money flowing and to fund our schools for all the students we teach.
And I will show up. In my first year, I will visit every public school in this district at least once. I want to listen to parents, hear from teachers, school administrators and ask students directly whether they have been given the tools to thrive.
Investing in our children is the best investment any community can make. Empower the parents. Equip the students. Trust the teachers. That is the work I am asking you to send me to Albany to do.
Pesach Osina is the Democrat candidate in the Assembly District 23 race.
