A joint letter from PSPED and the District 3 Task Force for Equity in Education:
October
28, 2016
Dear
Chancellor Fariña,
The parents and educational communities of Community School District 3 are in a dual crisis.
It is
common knowledge that our schools are made deeply unequal by years of disparities
in resources and supports, and yet there is no vision and no policy to address
those inequalities. The effect is that access to education and educational
outcomes are skewed by race, income, national origin, housing status, and other
factors. This is happening not just because schools serving low-income families
have less, but because privileged parents are allowed to group themselves into
specific schools for the purpose of having more. This deliberate production of
inequality is largely unacknowledged by the Department of Education (DOE) and Community
Education Council (CEC) 3, although it is a matter of constant public
discussion among parents and school communities.
Compounding this unacceptable state of District 3 schools, our CEC has yet to acknowledge its obligation to represent District 3 parents and “promote achievement of educational standards and objectives relating to the instruction of students,” as New York State law demands.
Compounding this unacceptable state of District 3 schools, our CEC has yet to acknowledge its obligation to represent District 3 parents and “promote achievement of educational standards and objectives relating to the instruction of students,” as New York State law demands.
“Desegregation” and the CEC rezoning
We appreciate
the fact that the CEC has recently acknowledged that the District’s schools are
segregated and that the problems of zoning, overcrowding, and segregation are
joined. This was not the case a year ago, and it does mark significant
progress. However, we disagree with the CEC that its rezoning plan is
a “desegregation" plan; it does not represent the interests of
low-income families of color throughout
the district. While the CEC has begun to portray itself as a champion of
diversity, we must insist that words be backed with actions that address how
structural racism creates segregated and unequal learning environments and
opportunities for the majority of the district’s children.
At the same time, CEC3 continues to sideline
discussions about the vast disparities that exist among schools, and how
privilege allows some families to choose and gain access to certain schools,
thereby disproportionately concentrating resources in select schools and
exacerbating overcrowding. Moreover, for the past three years, the CEC has focused
its attention on overcrowding at a few high-performing and heavily parent
funded schools at the southern end of the district. The rezoning focuses mostly
on schools where high-income families have accessed the vast majority of seats.
The schools left aside are virtually all low-income Title I schools, serving
mostly families of color.
PS 241 and the exclusion of low-income
schools from CEC representation
The CEC has
also consistently sidelined discussion about the need to support the many under
resourced schools outside the small area targeted for rezoning. The “surprise”
closure of PS241 is just one example of how the CEC’s myopic focus has harmed
families and schools in the rest of the district.
Like the CEC’s new turn to “desegregation,” its plan for PS 241,
which would effectively change zone lines, seems to have emerged without the
participation of the affected school community. The CEC’s proposed zoning plan
for PS241 makes no provision for mitigating the impact it will have on the
children in the building, and recommends an engagement process only after the plan is approved. We ask, do
the families in this school and all the other schools in the northern part of
District 3 deserve the same policymaking process that has been afforded the
more vocal families at PS199, PS452, PS9, PS87, PS166 and the other lower
district communities who have controlled the discourse on this subject?
CEC leaders have often repeated the refrain that low-income parents, parents of color, and parents from Harlem schools should raise equity concerns at CEC meetings – and that since they don’t show up en masse like parents concerned about rezoning, they must not be very concerned. There are several problems with such reasoning. First, as parents and community members have commented: there has consistently been a lack of notice, a lack of outreach, and a lack of infrastructure (language interpretation and childcare) for meetings that have resulted in the de facto prioritizing of those with greater flexibility of schedule and resources. Second, discussions about disparities and supporting low-income schools have had to be virtually elbowed in at Zoning Committee meetings and CEC public meetings. Since these meetings are never set up to discuss school equity, raising these issues often appears “off topic” and is treated as a distraction from the severely limited issues around which agendas have been planned. Given the need to literally clear space to talk about school quality, and the often hostile and dismissive response from CEC leadership, the claim that the CEC is open to parents is disingenuous at best. The combined result is that parents concerned about equity and parents at low-income schools have little reason to view the CEC as a place where they can find representation.
Community-Controlled Choice
Parents, PTAs, SLTs, and community advocates have been asking since 2014 for CEC3 to consider Community-Controlled Choice as a way to remedy unequal schools, admissions criteria that offer disproportionate choice to privileged families, and over- and under enrollment. There is no other proposal on the table to address those problems.
Parents, PTAs, SLTs, and community advocates have been asking since 2014 for CEC3 to consider Community-Controlled Choice as a way to remedy unequal schools, admissions criteria that offer disproportionate choice to privileged families, and over- and under enrollment. There is no other proposal on the table to address those problems.
In its
October 18 letter, the CEC claimed that Community-Controlled Choice had been
considered but had left too many unanswered questions. Both of these claims are
untrue: it was never considered, and the CEC has never pursued answers.
Further, the leadership of the CEC has made clear that they oppose
Community-Controlled Choice. Letters from the leadership of the CEC to parents
and advocates have made inaccurate claims that “controlled choice does not
enjoy a level of support in District 3 that makes further consideration prudent.”[1] The leadership of the CEC has made these profoundly
undemocratic assessments against Controlled Choice.
Under pressure from parents, advocates, and PTAs, the CEC held two deeply flawed community forums to discuss Community-Controlled Choice. They were planned in such a way that low-income parents were substantially excluded.[2] The Task Force, which had invested several years considering how Community-Controlled Choice might work in District 3, was not allowed to present because it was “not impartial.” Instead, the CEC created a panel with little knowledge of District 3, and limited what the panelists could say. Lisa Donlan, a panelist who was then CEC1 president, detailed in a recent comment on Chalkbeat that the panel appeared set up to preempt, rather than facilitate, consideration of Community-Controlled Choice:
Under pressure from parents, advocates, and PTAs, the CEC held two deeply flawed community forums to discuss Community-Controlled Choice. They were planned in such a way that low-income parents were substantially excluded.[2] The Task Force, which had invested several years considering how Community-Controlled Choice might work in District 3, was not allowed to present because it was “not impartial.” Instead, the CEC created a panel with little knowledge of District 3, and limited what the panelists could say. Lisa Donlan, a panelist who was then CEC1 president, detailed in a recent comment on Chalkbeat that the panel appeared set up to preempt, rather than facilitate, consideration of Community-Controlled Choice:
“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!...
…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…
…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…
…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.”[3]
…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…
…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…
…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.”[3]
What would be needed to
genuinely give Controlled Choice a real consideration is a commitment from the
CEC to invest in a community-wide planning process, similar to the process that
District 1 developed and implemented.[4] This process would not be
a decision to implement Controlled Choice, it would be a decision to fully
consider it, and finally address the severe and entrenched inequities that
plague our district.
Public process and Open
Meetings law
The CEC has created an unfortunate practice of making decisions on behalf of District 3, with little or no public consideration – often accompanied by disingenuous claims that they are actually the product of public engagement. The summary dismissal of Community-Controlled Choice is one example. The CEC’s rezoning proposal letter is yet another.
The CEC has created an unfortunate practice of making decisions on behalf of District 3, with little or no public consideration – often accompanied by disingenuous claims that they are actually the product of public engagement. The summary dismissal of Community-Controlled Choice is one example. The CEC’s rezoning proposal letter is yet another.
There is a question as to whether the CEC’s plan required
a public vote since there was an action taken by the members of the CEC that
proposed a rezoning plan. The New York State Committee on Open
Government is directed by the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) and under the
Open Meetings Law to furnish advice and issue regulations. The law requires
public bodies, including the CEC, to provide notice of the times and places of
meetings and to keep minutes of actions taken. Open Meetings Law states: “It
is essential to the maintenance of a democratic society that the public
business be performed in an open and public manner and that the citizens… be
fully aware of and able to observe the performance of public officials and
attend and listen to the deliberations and decisions that go into the making of
public policy." We are
very concerned that it appears that CEC3 did not follow the Open Meetings Law
in proposing a re-zoning plan to DOE without a vote in public. It is
imperative that all actions by the CEC be transparent so that the public may be
engaged and informed in a proper and timely manner about decisions
that affect all the students in the District 3 community.
Finally including all of District 3 parents, schools, and communities
The CEC’s October
18th proposal to Chancellor Fariña demonstrates that the CEC has begun to recognize the problem of segregation and inequity in our
District. But tacking “desegregation” onto a small, piecemeal rezoning is a shortsighted
approach that avoids confronting the underlying causes and leaves the systemic
problem unresolved. It is also unconscionable to conduct “desegregation”
without the participation of low-income communities.
We respectfully
request, once again, that you support our
recommendation to engage the District
3 community in a planning process to delve seriously into Community-Controlled
Choice as a potential solution to the most pressing systemic problems that
create unequal schools.
We request that the CEC’s plan be rejected in favor of a more comprehensive
plan that reviews the entire district and fulfills the CEC’s unmet obligation
to provide all District 3 parents and
community with “a public forum to air their concerns.”
The families of District 3 deserve to
have a real chance at equitable schools throughout the district. Segregation (the problem) and overcrowding (its
effect) need to be addressed in a manner that deals together with defining and creating diversity, equitably funding
and supporting schools, improving school outcomes, halting the siphoning effect
of charter schools, and challenging the “ownership” of better resourced schools
by privileged families.
This cannot happen in a CEC that represents only the loudest,
most privileged families and schools. We ask, therefore, for your support in
holding the CEC to its statutory obligation to represent the rest of us, and to
create equal educational opportunity for all
of our children.
Sincerely,
Ujju Aggarwal
Marilyn Barnwell
Flor Donoso
Lori Falchi
Theresa Hammonds
Elena Nasereddin
Donna Nevel
Lizabeth Sostre
Members, District 3 Equity in
Education Task Force
Emmaia Gelman (PS 75)
Yassiel Nieves (PS 145)
Kavita Singh (PS 333/MSC)
Toni Smith-Thompson (Mott Hall II)
for
NYC Public School Parents for Equity and
Desegregation
[1]
https://nycpsped.blogspot.com/2016/10/cec3-pres-response-to-psped-letter.html
[2] For
discussion of forum planning, see www.d3equity.org.
[3]
http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2016/10/19/drowned-out-of-upper-west-side-rezoning-battle-desegregation-advocates-fight-for-a-broader-plan/#.WBN6L-ErL-Y
[4] For
information on CEC1’s community engagement process, see CECd1.org
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