Recent report shows closing schools are packed with high-needs students, but City hasn’t released data showing where those kids ended up
Elected officials ask: What happened to the kids who didn’t make it into the new schools? Is “warehousing” of high-needs students at other schools dooming them to fail?
by Inside City Hall
NY1 VIDEO: A special panel joined Inside City Hall to discuss “Parent Power: Education Organizing in NYC,” a new film which documents a 15-year journey by a group of parents and advocates who built a citywide coalition to improve the public.
On September 21st, hundreds of local parents, students, teachers and community members protested school budget cuts on the steps of the Department of Education, presenting personal stories of how the $1.3 billion cut to public education has impacted their schools. Parents spoke of what it feels like to lose 2600 teachers, 777 school employees, as well as art, music, tutoring services, afterschool, guidance counselors, and more, and called on legislators to support the extension of the millionaire’s tax to bring in the needed funds to protect children from cuts.
Responding to Mayor Bloomberg’s proposed cuts of 6,000 teaching positions and his recent claims that NYC public school parents “don’t understand the value of education”, CEJ parents parked a school bus at City Hall on May 25th and invited the mayor to stand with us, not against us, by traveling to Albany to get the funds New York City’s children desperately need. See a video of the event here.
Though the mayor has blamed Albany for his own drastic cuts to education and other essential services, he has not advocated for a solution to restore the cuts, nor has he supported revenue solutions such as the Millionaire’s Tax—a continuation of the tax on the wealthiest state residents favored by more than two out of three New Yorkers.
CEJ parents are continuing to fight restore the cuts to education. Stay tuned for upcoming events!
CEJ, the Urban Youth Collaborative (UYC) and United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew called on new Chancellor-designee Dennis Walcott to fix the City’s failed strategy of closing struggling schools. The UYC released a report showing that closing schools serve huge numbers of the highest-needs students, but do not get the guidance and supports from the Department of Education they need to succeed. As a result, tens of thousands of students are abandoned in the closing schools and drop out, leave the school system, or have no data to show what happened to them after the school closed. Parents and students warned that thousands more students could face the same fate if the new chancellor doesn’t act immediately to change this policy.
On February 3rd, hundreds of CEJ parents, students from the Urban Youth Collaborative, and teachers from the closing schools and across the city protested the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) vote to close 13 schools. The PEP is majority-controlled by Mayor Bloomberg, with a 100% approval rate on all of his proposals. Knowing that the hearing would not result in a fair decision about the fate of these schools, the people in the auditorium erupted, chanting “Fix our schools NOW” and most people left the meeting to protest the Department of Education’s lack of a plan to fix our struggling schools. Click here to watch a video of the protest.
Two New York City Council Members and dozens of parents and youth were arrested for blocking traffic in lower Manhattan following a rally outside Department of Education (DOE) headquarters. Council Members Jumaane Williams and Charles Barron were among those arrested when hundreds of parents and students gathered to demand the City “fix schools, not just close them” as the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) prepares to vote this week on whether or not to close 26 schools. Read more and see video coverage at EdVox.
Last July, parents and education advocates were alarmed when state test scores revealed that 239,000 NYC students are not on track for success in college. The NYC Coalition for Educational Justice (CEJ) spearheaded a “Save Our Schools” campaign with elected officials and leading advocacy organizations to secure immediate intervention services for these students. That effort saw a major victory on January 19th in Mayor Bloomberg’s announcement of a $10 million initiative to support 532 schools in providing additional tutoring services to the most struggling students, including small group and individual instruction during the school day, afterschool and on weekends, and supplemental instructional materials. CEJ parent leader Zakiyah Ansari spoke as part of the announcement today at the Department of Education headquarters in Manhattan.
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The release of the 2010 New York State reading and math test scores was a sobering moment for our city. The depth and breadth of the crisis is staggering. As a result of NYS recalibrating the test scores to align with college-ready standards, citywide reading scores declined by 27 points, math scores went down 28 points, and the racial and income-based achievement gaps have grown. Only 13% of students with disabilities and 14% of English Language Learners scored proficient in English Language Arts (ELA). Tens of thousands of additional students are NOT on the road to college and career success. Compared to 2009: