Countering Mayoral Control of Public Schools: Building a Movement for a New and Just Educational System

Event Sponsor: The Brecht Forum- The Right to the City Forum Series

Reflection: With the rapid changes in our city/state/country's economy and the push for privatization of education in New York City and state by the Bloomberg-Kline team, a coalition has formed to fight for a student-centered education system, countering the business model that the system has taken on. On Tuesday night, I had the wonderful opportunity to hear members of this coalition speak to this issue. The coalition included: Martha Foote from Time Out from Testing, Perla Placencia from the Center for Immigrant Families, Edwin Mayorgra from NYCORE, and Sam Anderson, from the Independent Commission on Public Education and Black New Yorkers for Educational Excellence.
Each speaker provided details of his/her organization, and then discussed the goals of the coalition from the perspective of his/her organization. Foote- the first speaker- talked about high-stakes and excessive testing. She explained that state testing has had a strong effect on students of color, recent immigrants, and students of low socioeconomic status. Because these tests, particularly the Regents, determine students’ success and progress outside of the K-12 public education system, and have a great impact on college and job opportunities in the future, it is crucial that we act on this blatant bias. Not only are these at-risk populations hurting as a result of excessive testing, so too is the rest of the K-12 population. As teachers are becoming more pressured to “teach to the test,” student engagement, contribution, and the student-teaching relationship are being prevented. According to Foote, it should be our goal to “return to a more complex, in-depth, humanizing look at testing.” We should look at student work—tests, papers, and reports—and ask, ‘what is work? What is assessment?’ to solidify what our expectations are of both students and the education system. It is also critical that we professionalize teachers again, as education is not a business model, but rather a place where teachers use creativity, sensitivity, and philosophical and curricular knowledge to differentiate for, and engage students.
Perla Placencia, along with one of her colleagues from the Center for Immigrant Families, was the second speaker. They spoke extensively about the constant denial of public education with which many immigrant families are faced. In response to this growing problem, the Center for Immigrant Families was created in order to unite these families to become “agents of change.” Bringing these families together means telling migration stories and recognizing common themes, as well as bringing to light the “systematic denial of access of their community to public education” and working to document these cases for a community report. It is every child’s right to high-quality public education, which draws from its community to incorporate outside learning experiences into its curriculum.
Our professor, Edwin Mayorga, was the third speaker, representing NYCORE. He discussed the initiatives of NYCORE, including the demilitarization in public schools, NYQueer, and Justice, not Just Tests. He stressed the importance of the teacher’s role as a community worker, explaining, “School does not end when the bell rings.” He encouraged teacher activism, making note that some people become comfortable with what they hear in regards to the changing education system. When Bloom Kline decide to add more testing, people are reluctant to think, “Oh that makes sense, that’s how schools should be,” rather than challenge the system. It should be our goal as educators to work for social change in equality in education, creating an anti-oppressing model. It is critical that education plays a transformative role in the lives of students.
The final speaker was Sam Anderson, from the Independent Commission on Public Education and Black New Yorkers for Educational Excellence. He spoke of the disappearance of teachers of color in the educational system, explaining that in a system with 85% students of color, 80% of the staff is white. He also talked about the goal of the Independent Commission on Public Education in terms of rethinking the entire educational system and catering the system toward the students in the city. As educators, we should look at the history of early struggles in education, and teach to these struggles to demonstrate that education is a human right. We should elicit student input and feedback on their education system, looking at both problems and solutions.
This dialogue was inspirational and educational. As a future educator, I have a clearer picture of what my role is as a change-maker and community worker, and what opportunities I have to voice my concerns and engage in transforming schools to meet the needs of all students. I have a more concrete understanding of the politics in our education systems, and what effect they have on me as a future educator. Rather than sit back and allow unjust changes to be made to our educational system, it is my goal to enlist community effort and action to challenge mayoral control. As I have seen through media (Fair Trade Chocolate Unit and “Fear and Learning at Hoover Elementary”) and read in articles (‘Write the Truth’) in this class, my voice, though small, is an important one. A single individual can make an impact, building alliances, questioning injustices, and catalyzing transformations.