The future of public education in the United States stands at a critical crossroad.

Over the past two decades, a web of billionaire advocates, national foundations, policy institutes, and local and federal decision-makers have worked to dismantle public education and promote a top-down, market-based approach to school reform.

Under the guise of civil rights advocacy, this approach has targeted low-income, urban African-American, Latino and immigrant communities, while excluding them from the reform process. The reforms have sown distrust and division among parents and teachers, and utterly failed to improve educational outcomes for children. These attacks are racist and must be stopped.

The time is ripe for a new education movement that provides students throughout the United States, regardless of their race or income, with equitably resourced neighborhood schools.

Today, I stand with the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools to demand and fight for:

• Full, fair funding for neighborhood-based community schools that provide students with quality in-school supports and wraparound services

• Charter accountability and transparency and an end to state takeovers of low-performing schools and districts

• Positive discipline policies and an end to zero-tolerance

• Full and equitable funding for all public schools

• Racial justice and equity in our schools and communities.

There is too much at stake to be silent in this moment. I commit to fighting until we bend the political will in this country so that we create public schools where parents want to send their kids, students are engaged and educators want to work; the schools all our children deserve.