Marching For Families

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The mayor sees an example every week outside City Hall:

They may not be massive, but the weekly one-man marches around City Hall have been effective in exposing the many flaws of the mayor’s childcare policies.

Tuesday, for the second week in a row, Raglan George, executive director of AFSCME District Council 1707, which represents many of the city’s childcare and Head Start employees, marched on City Hall.

His purpose was “to tell Mayor Bloomberg to stop his attacks on early childhood education and work to improve the lives of New York's most vulnerable citizens.”

Members of his union, as well as parents and children marched with him on the Broadway side of City Hall.

The marchers, George said, will return every week to let everybody know about the multiple problems with the mayor’s Early Learn program which he believes is “a dishonest response to ‘fix’ New York City’s childcare which was not broken in the first place.”

The first march happened Oct. 1, the day Early Learn became effective, and Raglan was joined by New York City Central Labor Council President Vincent Alvarez; Tammi Miller, Home Day Care Provider director for the United Federation of Teachers and City Council members Gail Brewer and Robert Jackson.

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“Fewer children are being serviced and parents are anxious about their children’s care because the Early Learn plan simply does not work,” George said. “Centers that should be open are not; the city’s Administration for Children Services refuses to answer questions on the selection process of centers and safe, quality and affordable childcare for thousands of New York’s children is in jeopardy because of bad policy decisions by this administration.”

He promised to continue the marches every week until his concerns are addressed by the mayor. George is calling for the restoration of thousands of eliminated children slots; reinstatement of community-based childcare centers closed by Early Learn, rehiring of hundreds of long-time and professional childcare workers terminated and advocating an investigation of Early Learn practices and procedures by federal, state and city authorities.

The mayor of course only notices people with money, so the marches will have little effect on him.But they do a great job of exposing the sham that is the Bloomberg administration.Children First?Nahhh.Billionaire's First.Everyone else can go screw themselves.That's Bloomberg's motto.