About

Who We Are

The NYC Coalition for Educational Justice (CEJ) is organizing a parent-led movement for educational equity and excellence in the city’s public schools. We are a citywide collaborative of community-based organizations and unions whose members are parents, community residents and teachers. Together, we are fighting to ensure that every child in NYC receives a quality and well-rounded education.

Why We Are Organizing

Education is a critical lever for social and economic equity in our society. The opportunity to receive an excellent education is not distributed equally across neighborhoods, and far too many children are stuck in failing schools that do not prepare them for college and the world of work. For example:

  • Less than one in three Black and Latino students in NYC graduate from high school in four years with a Regents diploma, which is essential for admission to 4-year colleges and will be the only diploma available for this year’s ninth graders.
  • Less than one in three NYC Black and Latino eighth graders can read, write and do math at the state standard, compared to two out of three White eighth graders.

What We Have Won

Our successes so far include:

  • Middle Grades: CEJ’s efforts led to the establishment of a Department of Education Middle School Success incentive grant fund of almost $30 million to support comprehensive reform in low performing middle grade schools.
  • Science Labs: The Brooklyn Education Collaborative, composed of CEJ groups in the borough, secured a commitment of $444 million from the NYC Department of Education to build science labs in every middle and high school by 2010.
  • Teacher Quality: The Community Collaborative to Improve Bronx Schools, composed of CEJ groups in the borough, created the Lead Teacher Program, which puts master teachers in schools to support the development of other teachers. The program began in District 9 in the South Bronx in 2004 and has since expanded to include more than 100 schools citywide.

Current Organizing Work

We will continue our fight to:

  • Ensure that middle grades reforms are implemented effectively in low-performing schools
  • Through our alliance with the Alliance for Quality Education and the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, ensure that NYC schools get their fair share of city and state funding
  • Organize parents and community members to fight for the redesign and expansion of the school day in low-performing schools in order to prepare all students for college and careers.

CEJ will continue its work with community advocates and unions to build a broad social movement to end educational inequities and ensure that all of NYC’s children receive an excellent education.

CEJ Member Organizations

  • Abyssinian Development Corporation is a comprehensive community and economic development corporation dedicated to improving the quality of life in Harlem. Over the last 20 years, ADC has developed and is sponsor to three high-performing public educational institutions and is partner to a multitude of community and education organizations through the ADC Education Movement. Contact Ocynthia Williams at 646.442-6142.
  • ACORN is a national membership organization of low- and moderate-income families with a thirty-year history of organizing for social change. The NYC ACORN Schools Office has developed new public schools and produced policy studies demonstrating racial and economic inequities in the school system. Contact Amelia Adams at (718) 246-7900.
  • Cypress Hills Advocates for Education (CHAFE) was formed by a group of parents and neighborhood residents concerned with the quality of education in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn. Affiliated with the Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation, CHAFE uses outreach, advocacy, education, and community organizing to fight for neighborhood schools that provide all children with a quality, safe, and modern education. Contact Lucretia John at (718) 647-8100.
  • Highbridge Community Life Center has been providing a wide range of educational and social services since 1979, including job training programs and entitlement assistance to families living in the Highbridge neighborhood. Contact Chauncy Young at (718) 410-6744.
  • Make the Road New York is a major force for social change in New York City, with more than 3,000 members who lead the organization in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. Make the Road New York offers a variety of services and strategies for neighborhood improvement, including organizing for civil rights and economic justice, legal services, educational programs, and youth development. Contact Placida Rodriguez at (718)418-7690 ext. 210.
  • Mirabal Sisters Cultural and Community Center is a grassroots community organization cultivating leadership and mobilizing residents to demand social, economic and environmental justice for low-income, immigrants, Latinos and people of color in West Harlem and Washington Heights. Contact Jose Gonzalez at (212) 234-3002.
  • New Settlement Apartments owns and operates almost 1,000 units of low- and moderate-income housing in the Mount Eden neighborhood and provides educational and community service programs to area residents. Contact Lauren Morse at (718) 716-8000.
  • New York Civic Participation Project is a collaboration of labor unions and community groups organizing union members in the neighborhoods where they live. The member organizations – SEIU Local 32BJ, AFSCME DC-37, HERE Local 100, the National Employment Law Project, and Make the Road by Walking – represent hundreds of thousands of workers and decades of success fighting for immigrant and worker rights in New York. Contact Sussie Lozada at (212) 388-3664.
  • United Federation of Teachers Brooklyn Parent Outreach Committee works to strengthen home-school collaborations and increase parent involvement and responsibility. Contact Betty Zohar at (718) 722-6936.
  • 1199 Child Care Fund has established the Public Education Advocacy Project to organize Hospital and Health Care Workers Union members, many of whose children attend public school, to participate in school-improvement activities.
  • The Community Involvement Program of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform has supported community organizing for school reform in New York since 1995. It provides a wide range of strategic support to the collaboratives, including data analysis, research, and training.