{"id":503573,"date":"2026-01-09T11:05:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T11:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/503573\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T11:05:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T11:05:07","slug":"the-rita-joseph-fan-club-speaks-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/503573\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rita Joseph fan club speaks out"},"content":{"rendered":"

Council Speaker Julie Menin should keep Council Member Rita Joseph as Education Committee chair, according an education advocacy group sending a letter<\/a> they say is signed by\u00a0more than 200 parents, nonprofit leaders and education leaders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The letter, organized by advocacy coalition New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools, comes amid rumors that the<\/a> new speaker may be appointing Council Member Eric Dinowitz to lead the important committee. Nothing has been officially announced at this point \u2013 nor have committee assignments been finalized two days after Menin\u2019s unanimous election.<\/a> Dinowitz, a former special education teacher and chapter leader for the United Federation of Teachers, most recently chaired the City Council\u2019s higher education committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy whole career has been advocating for New Yorkers, whether it’s in our public school or in the New York City Council,\u201d Dinowitz told City & State when asked whether he\u2019d been offered anything.<\/p>\n

Joseph is a former public school teacher from Brooklyn. Her tenure as education chair coincided with a period of major uncertainty within the city\u2019s school system. She steered the committee through multiple contentious budget cycles, conducted oversight as the city welcomed an influx of migrant students into its schools and grappled with learning loss and mental health challenges in wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The letter doesn\u2019t directly mention Dinowitz or any other council member besides Joseph. Instead, it lists a bevy of her accomplishments from the last four years like her role in pushing the city to restore funding for education<\/a> programming supported by expiring pandemic dollars and advocacy for youth in foster care.<\/a> It also emphasizes the need for seasoned continuity as the city\u2019s public school system faces the threat of federal funding cuts and changes to the state\u2019s<\/a> funding formula, which led to city schools receiving $314 million less last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want the Council to have an education chair in place that has led under challenging times and has successfully ensured that the city prioritizes the needs of New York City children and families in the midst of hard budget decisions,\u201d the letter reads.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As speaker of the City Council, it\u2019s Menin\u2019s responsibility to dole out committee assignments to her 50 colleagues. Chair positions generally go to council members with relevant expertise, but the speaker also tends to reward allies and punish foes. To that point, Dinowitz was one of Menin\u2019s most adamant supporters in the speaker\u2019s race. And while she voted for the Upper East Side moderate as speaker earlier this week, Joseph was not part of the initial slate of council members rolled out by Menin in<\/a> late November announcing that she\u2019d secured support from a majority of her colleagues.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the speaker\u2019s office directed City & State to comments Menin made on NY1\u2019s Inside City Hall Wednesday night.<\/a> \u201cOn Jan. 15, which will be the next stated meeting, we will be announcing every single committee chair and then which members comprise each of the respective committees,\u201d Menin said. \u201cI\u2019m having one-on-one meetings with every single member in the coming days to continue the conversations around committees.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joseph did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Council Speaker Julie Menin should keep Council Member Rita Joseph as Education Committee chair, according an education advocacy…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":503574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,407,70742,405,403,6640,13261,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-503573","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-education","10":"tag-heard-around-town","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-new-york-city-council","14":"tag-news-politics","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115864818675701604","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}