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The pride of New York's public schools PS21 organizes exhibit of prominent graduates 
November 18, 2004 Jane Bernhard, past president of the state PTA, and NYSUT President Tom Hobart. For her entire childhood, Sandra Feldman grew up in a city-owned slum in Brooklyn. It was condemned the whole time she lived there. Fortunately, New York's public schools were there for the poor kid from Coney Island. She graduated from James Madison High School. A bachelor's degree at Brooklyn College (thanks to free tuition), a master's degree from New York University, a fourth-grade teacher - and the next thing you know, she's president of the United Federation of Teachers in New York City and then the American Federation of Teachers, a national union of 1.3 million members. Feldman knows public schools thoroughly - so it was fitting that she was among the first members of a pictorial honor roll of successful New York public school graduates, unveiled last month in Manhattan. PS21, the not-for-profit Public Schools for the 21st Century, unfurled the honor roll to celebrate the state's schools. The plan is for the honor roll, with portraits and biographies of public school luminaries, to travel through the state for a year to schools and other public venues. "None of us would be where we are today without public education," wrote Feldman in a letter. "Before you know it, some of today's students will be at a PS21 event being honored - thanks in part to a start by public education." Earlier this year, Feldman retired as president of the AFT, the national affiliate of New York State United Teachers. Speaking of Feldman, Antonia Cortese said, "She is passionate about the role of public schools in our democracy." Cortese, a former NYSUT officer and now the executive vice president of the AFT, is the treasurer of PS21. "You see the common thread that holds us all together - public education," said Barbara Bartoletti, PS21 president. "Eighty-five percent of students are educated in public school. We're going to produce not only the leaders of the 21st century but the jobs of the future." "This exhibit scratches the surface of impressive graduates," said NYSUT President Tom Hobart. "This exhibit is a powerful expression of the potential our members see - and encourage - every day in the classrooms of New York's public schools." Other honorees include: Cynthia Nixon, an actress of Sex and the City fame who is a public education advocate who joined the NYSUT-backed rally for funding public education in Albany last year; Nobel Prize-winning genetecist Joshua Lederberg; David Randolph, a New York City choir conductor who will celebrate his 90th birthday with a performance at Carnegie Hall next month; and then - ladies and gentlemen - Johnathan Lee Iverson, the first African-American ringmaster for Ringling Brothers circus. PS21 is a coalition of organizations, including NYSUT, that promotes public education. For more, go to www.ps21.org. - Liza Frenette
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