Video: Protesters March Through Coney Island To Oppose Education Cuts

Nearly 100 teachers, parents and students from a slew of Southern Brooklyn schools rallied on Wednesday, November 30, to decry the continued cuts to public education in New York City.

The rally was mostly comprised of teachers and students from Leon M. Goldstein High School in Manhattan Beach, but organizers said other schools were represented, including Grady High School, New Utrecht High School, John Dewey High School and Franklin D. Roosevelt High School – as well as local middle schools and elementary schools. Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, representing New York’s subway and bus workers, also sent a contingent, as did TWU Local 101, representing the city’s gas workers. They were joined by faculty and students from Kingsborough Community College, as well.

Though the protest was focused on education cuts, which have left many local schools without sufficient faculty, supplies or funding for extracurriculars, the marchers expressed frustration with the city and state’s habitual slashing of public infrastructure, including mass transportation, public hospitals and social services. The cuts are a stark contrast to the government’s treatment of the wealthy, most notably in how the state is willing to allow a millionaire’s tax to expire in the midst of such slashing, protesters told Sheepshead Bites.