Challenging CEC3's tightly-controlled "open discussion" of school equity

Last March, Lisa Donlan was at CEC3's forum on a potential solution to unequal schools: Controlled Choice admissions. This week, Donlan explained how the forum was used to deny the policy a hearing even as the CEC gave the appearance of raising it.

I was one of the panelists at the two Controlled Choice forums in question and I must say, as I did at both panels, I am NO EXPERT! I am a parent leader/now community member who has been active in the movement to address systemic segregation in NYC public schools for more than 10 years, working with grass roots organizers, parents and communities across NYC to explore policy options that address segregation. 

As a result if this work I have had the opportunity to learn form and collaborate with with folks from D3, as well as D13, D15 and many other communities across NYC who are looking at dismantling segregating assignment policies. 

My only "expertise" is derived from a deep understanding of my community- CSD1 (the LES/ East Village) - and our long struggle to dismantle the admissions policies that cause and contribute to school segregation. 

(You can learn at lot about that history here: https://cecd1.org/cec1-initiat...
and here: https://cecd1.org/district-1/h... and here: https://cecd1.org/2015/09/14/s... 

I participated in the two CEC3 Task Force on Overcrowding panels in that capacity and was clear that I could provide no "answers" for D3. Rather, I was adamant that I could offer only a potential model for D3 to consider -based on our work in D1, and the work of grass roots groups already studying the issue and solutions in D3( see http://www.d3equity.org/p/abou... with whom we often collaborated. 

Despite my clear claims that, under the model of community-led controlled choice, each community would need to clarify its own values and examine the geographic and historical context that contribute to the segregation problem that controlled choice could address, I was asked to answer questions about a plan for D3 that had not been created!
I explained that after analyzing and coming to a deep understanding of the factors that create segregation in D3, the local leaders and stakeholders needed to clarify their vision for equity and fairness and then work with data and expert planners to hard wire those values into policy. 

I talked about D1 and our work and how it garnered us a Federally funded grant to create such a plan to pilot in CSD1. That process is not necessarily lengthy or expensive ( in D1 we funded most of our work- workshops, forums, studies, Town Halls, etc, with our CEC budget and certainly could have been well advanced by now if it had been undertaken when discussed many months ago. 

Nonetheless I was told by a CEC Task Force on Overcrowding panel organizer that I could not use words like "segregated schools" as they are too hurtful. At the meetings I was asked questions like:
"Are you asking UWS families to leave their current schools and go uptown to attend failing schools?"
And:
"Will there be two kinds of admissions priorities- for those who bought vs those who rent on the UWS?" 

The panel was asked to provide a busing and transportation plan for a proposal that had not been designed, and other such backwards planning requests. 

These sorts of constraints and questions indicated an underlying general resistance to actually exploring controlled choice as an option, based on a deep aversion to removing zone lines, the ones that ensure privileged access to the most resourced schools. The panels felt set up in a way to avoid having to consider ways to reach for real equity for all children by finding fault with controlled choice before it even had a chance, so it would not be given consideration in D3. 

A band aid approach can never dismantle the systemic structural inequities in our city - rezoning and single school set asides will not achieve the goals of providing equity and excellence in education for all children.