Frances Villar for Mayor Newsletter for the Week of Aug. 31
Education is a right! CUNY should be free!
 Frances Villar speaking at the Coalition for Public Education. Left, City Councilman Charles Barron. Click this link to read Frances’s statement. Click this link to make an urgently needed donation to the Frances Villar for Mayor |
With summer ending, hundreds of thousands of New York City residents are turning their attention toward the new school year. New York City has the largest public school system in the United States, serving about 1.1 million students in about 1,500 schools.
The Frances Villar for Mayor Campaign extends its best wishes to all the students, parents and teachers of New York City for great success this year—despite the many challenges that always stand in the way poor and working people. Some people might think education would be impossible for families facing poverty, unemployment and racist police terror, yet some poor and working people always manage to overcome the odds.
Imagine the success that students and parents could achieve in a society without poverty and racism! Imagine a society organized by and for working people, where education was a right and not a privilege! That is the society that the Frances Villar for Mayor campaign is fighting for.
Frances is a City University of New York student herself. She is one of over 480,000 thousand students, a majority Black and Latino, who attend the largest and most diverse public University in the United States. She will be continuing her studies at Lehman College in the Bronx as a Research Scholar pursuing her bachelor’s degree in biology.
Unfortunately, in an economy centered on profits, institutions such as CUNY are first to be placed on the budget chopping block during any economic downturn.
“It is not profitable, or in the interests of the ruling class, to have the vast majority of women of color like myself educated and organized,” Frances notes. “This campaign is about empowering the workers and students of New York City to stand up and continue the fight to keep CUNY affordable, and to keep our public schools from becoming private businesses and not institutions of learning!”
When she was a student at Bronx Community College, she was a member of student government and a delegate for CUNY’s University Student Senate.
Frances helped organize hundreds of her fellow BCC students to support the Jena Six, six young African Americans men who were victims of a racist legal railroading in 2007.
She was also a central organizer in trying to push back the 2008 tuition increases at CUNY at the very time the city was trying to put the economic crisis on the backs of CUNY students and other poor and working New Yorkers.
The Frances Villar campaign demands free and quality education for all students from pre-K to PhD!
We call for an end to the attacks on affirmative action!
We call for an end to the privatization of education through charter schools!
Our children’s education is not a business model!
On Saturday the 29th Frances Villar spoke at the founding conference of the Coalition for Public Education, which also featured Charles Barron, Tony Avella, Normal Siegal and others. We support parents, teachers and students who all say No to Mayoral Control!
Building momentum
On August 26, the Frances Villar for Mayor campaign organized a Campaign Rally and Mobilizers Meeting on 135th street in Harlem. The meeting was attended by many different organizations and individuals and included an exciting speakers panel. Dozens of people participated in a “Blitz Day” the following day, where we estimate almost 4,000 Frances Villar for Mayor campaign flyers were distributed in a single day.
Frances Villar in the news
Over the past week Frances has been interviewed by a number of different newspapers.
She was on the front page of Honduran newspaper “Catrachos” which is seen by the thousands of Honduran immigrants who live in NYC.
Frances was live on Urban Latino Radio on Friday the 28th where she discussed politics and music with Rebel Radio hosts Ivan Sanchez and Kid BoomBox.
“Why I support Frances Villar”
–Joanne Epstein, Director of Student Services for NYC DOE’s Children First Network, high school teacher for over 15 years.
Joanne met Frances through her former student and got to know her personally before Frances told her about her fight for students, health care and workers rights.
“She seemed very driven and motivated, ambitious for what she believes. She cares a lot and obviously wants to make a difference.” Ms. Epstein told us during our phone interview. “I have a lot of respect for Frances and the PSL for all their efforts and hard work in the whole campaign.”
As a life long teacher, Joanne understands the needs of NYC public schools.
“We have the largest school system in the country so you would think that someone running the school system should be highly qualified and knowledgeable. So if that’s possible I don’t care who runs it…. I personally oversee 33 NYC public schools I feel like [politicians] put plans into place instead of fully thinking it out and how the plan will affect the whole school system… you cannot just run a school like a business, although it has worked in improving test scores and increased data-driven instruction, yes, but what about everything else? What happens when the plan fails? What about the dropout rate and students not achieving under the current plan? Where are the bigger and broader initiatives?”
“Why I support Frances Villar”
–Chris Pavlou, high-school English teacher in the New York Public School system and a student at CUNY
Chris heard about the Frances Villar for Mayor campaign from fellow students and teachers who had seen flyer and posters around their neighborhood. Chris decided to support the campaign after attending a couple of the meetings where Frances had been speaking.
“It’s getting more and more difficult to pay the bills when tuition keeps rising and, due to education cuts, I have to spend more money out of my pocket on school supplies. Schools are understaffed and materials are scarce, and whatever money is coming in is directed through the wrong channels.”
“Life here [in NYC] is expensive as it is, and the last thing we need is to pay more for our right to an education. As an individual whose family immigrated here years ago, I have a stake in ensuring that people from all over the world today still have the opportunity to come here and be granted equal rights without being exploited.”
“The city needs someone who is willing to take on the important issues and also not be influenced by the lure of money and power. It’s a difficult task, but I’m glad that at least this year there is the option to vote for a candidate who I actually believe in and support, a candidate who has real change on her mind.”
The Frances Villar for Mayor campaign is not only thinking about revolution but we are working towards making that day come, one raised fist at a time!
We Need Your Help
The Frances Villar for Mayor campaign has tremendous potential to bring together poor and working people across the city to challenge the billionaires and to put our needs first on the agenda. In the middle of the most severe economic crisis this country has seen in decades, capitalism has failed—we need socialism!
But it won’t happen without your help.
We need all the funds we can get in order to continue bringing the message of struggle to the working people of NYC. We’ll be holding street meetings and organizing street meetings to get out the word: “Billionaires, Your Time is Up! Put Poor and Working People First!”
Click here to see the amount of FINES the Frances Villar for Mayor campaign has received just for exercising our right to freedom of speech.
Click this link to make an urgently needed donation to the Frances Villar for Mayor
There are many ways to continue building the movement to take on the parasitic billionaires and their system. Organize an Event, Volunteer your time, ask us a question and finally Join the revolutionary party organizing the Frances Villar for Mayor campaign: The Party for Socialism and Liberation!
See you in the streets,
The VotePSL Campaign Team
