Coalition for Educational Justice

A report released by the NYC City Council Middle School Task Force shows that CEJ’s middle school campaign has contributed to student achievement gains. The 51 middle grade schools that were the focus of CEJ’s reform efforts have made more progress on the state exams than other middle grade schools.  This is particularly impressive because the 51 schools were among the lowest performing in the city. 

Click here to read the report and click here to read the Daily News story.

The City Council unanimously passed a resolution endorsing CEJ’s School Transformation Zone, an alternative approach to school turnaround that would improve low-performing schools so they don’t have to be closed.

Read the press release here and the full Council resolution here!

On May 21st, CEJ released a policy brief documenting the lack of research support for school closings as a school improvement strategy, and profiling successful models that have increased student achievement without the damaging side effects inflicted by closings. In Beyond School Closings: Effective Alternatives for Low-Performing Schools, CEJ urges the NYC Department of Education to use the federal School Improvement Grants to invest in proven school improvement strategies and establish a School Transformation Zone to support NYC’s 34 SIG schools and other low-performing schools.  

Click here to read CEJ’s policy brief on school turnaround.

On April 28th, 150 CEJ parents stood with a broad-based coalition of educators, elected officials, clergy and advocates to call for the creation of a School Transformation Zone to improve low-performing schools and prevent school closings. CEJ sent a letter to Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein with over signatures from over 70 prominent New Yorkers in support of the Zone. Check out the City Council resolution in support of the Zone below.
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CEJ announces the launch of EdVox, a new blog on education in New York City written by parents, students and community members from the neighborhoods most affected by under-resourced and under-performing schools. Subscribe now!

www.edvox.org

CEJ’s 3rd Annual Martin Luther King Day rally was held at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem and hosted by Rev. Calvin O. Butts, III. With CEJ leaders emceeing the rally, and with the CEJ Platform the focal point, the speakers argued that school closings and charter schools were not the primary answer to the city’s educational crisis, that students must keep their free metro cards, and that the NYC Department of Education should respect and recognize the city’s Muslim students’ most important holidays. (more…)