A panel including Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza will discuss race and education on Tuesday starting at 6 p.m. at the Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing & Visual Arts at 215 West 114th Street. You can register at https://bit.ly/ps452CarranzaEmdin
First there will be a screening of the documentary series “America to Me”. The panel will include:
“Chancellor Richard Carranza, responsible for NYC’s DOE, the largest public school system in the US;
Dr. Christopher Emdin, noted Teacher’s College Scholar on transformative pedagogical approaches in the classroom;
Dr. Chala Holland, America to Me series participant and 2018 recipient of the Courageous Conversation Principal Leadership Award;
PS 452 Principal Scott Parker, locally celebrated principal for his leadership and long-time equity practitioner;
PS 452 Parent Zakiya Raines Heyden, committed parent well-versed in educational disparities;
CEC 3 Member Sharmilee L. Ramudit, moderator of the discussion and parent-scholar committed to engaging in collaborative equity discourse.”
I wish Carranza would spend his time tinkering with some of the other Districts where a vast majority of the schools are grossly underperforming rather than using our kids as guinea pigs.
And the best way to bring about change in these districts is to focus on improving education at the youngest ages. Universal Pre-K is a great start. But tinkering with admissions for middle and high schools when many kids are already very far behind by the time they get there is not the best solution.
Integration is a social goal intended to socialize children in PUBLIC schools to act civically.
A riddle inspired by the headline “Collective Responsibility”
Q: Why does the chancellor insist on using shame tactics intended to insult and alienate actual enthusiastic supporters of public education (if measured by parent fundraising & donations to make up DOE shortfall) rather than work on improving quality of education for districts and schools that need it.
A: Because it is easier to bully others and deflect blame than to come up with an actual solution for failing schools.
We should not be forced into a Hunger Games situation where we are fighting among ourselves for seats at a small number of decent schools.
We should be demanding that the chancellor expand the number of decent schools to ALL SCHOOLS.
Diversity is not the mandate. Infighting is not the mandate. Decent education is the mandate and the ACTUAL responsibility of the DOE. Not the collective responsiblilty of parents. Can we get the scores and graduation rates up please? Is that too much to ask???
The DOE lost all credibilty on the diversity issue when they rezoned kindergartners on our block to the 3rd closest elementary school. In the name of diversity. Without bothering to consider that we are a low income block being moved from high income, high performing schools to a lower performing and lower income school by DOE’s own metrics.
A rising tide lifts all boats. A falling tide swirls us all down the drain.
Glug glug glug.
@ UWS Mom
The Carranza has a personal record of academic failure and he left a trail of destruction when he was in charge of the Houston and SF school districts.
Our illustrious mayor recruited him to bring his wrecking ball to NYC. Instead of holding up the handful of successful schools left as models to emulate and aspire to he bashes everyone connected to these schools – parents, students, faculty – as being “racist”.
Carranza is being paid about $500K a year for his brilliant work.
The whole thing is a disgrace.
Sherm
it’s interesting that school integration is defined as “tinkering.” NYC schools are apparently now more segregated than they were in the 1960s and 70s. i wonder if the same writer would have accused MLK and Thurgood Marshall of “tinkering.”
integration is PART of the education mandate. in fact, it’s a very important part.
based on the support of the elected COmmunity Education Council (CEC) in District 3, the majority of parents support the District 3 middle school integration plan. of course, the anti-integration parents are free to run a segregationist slate in the future. that would certainly be interesting.
The middle school integration plan has nothing to do with zoned schools; while there is a dropback “zoned” school for each middle school child, all middle schools make selections district wide. Children are travelling to out-of-neighborhood (but in District) middle schools today.
UWSMom Said:
“Why does the chancellor insist on using shame tactics intended to insult and alienate actual enthusiastic supporters of public education (if measured by parent fundraising & donations to make up DOE shortfall)”
Her piece of evidence doesn’t show that these “insulted” parents support “public education.” It shows that they support THEIR CHILDREN’S public education. Supporting public education throughout the city means addressing the huge racial and class disparities, with school integration being an important pillar of doing so.
Please stop using dog whistle tactics to make all who oppose this sound like racists. In fact, you are the one being racist by implying that all underperforming students are minorities. You are creating a divisive environment, which helps no one.
Those of us who don’t like this plan are all for diversity and integration. If we weren’t, we would have our kids in private school or would move to 100% white suburbs. However, there are very limited resources in the school district. Those resources would be better channeled towards improving underperforming elementary schools so that students from those schools can get into high performing middle schools on their own merits. Another option is to put resources towards some of the less desirable middle schools to make them more desirable.
Putting kids who are not adequately prepared into top middle schools helps no one, as it just sets them up to fail. And, like it or not, it stigmatizes the many minority students who are in those schools on their own merits as their peers assume they only got in through the back door (see recent NY Times reporting on the selective high schools).
response to Juan:
I called no one a “racist” in my posting above. What i did was counter some of the arguments being made against Carranza’s extremely modest, incremental integration proposal for middle schools on the UWS. And i pointed out, correctly, that the arguments being used are exactly the same arguments that are always used against integration, and were used by the segregationists back during the Civil Rights movement.
Juan, on the other hand, can’t go two sentences without calling me a “racist.” Juan said:
“In fact, you are the one being racist by implying that all underperforming students are minorities. You are creating a divisive environment, which helps no one.”
Where did i imply that all underperforming students are minorities? Or, conversely, that all minorities are underperforming? I said nothing of the kind, nor even close to it.
In fact, if you’ve been reading what i have been posting, you know that i have shown statistics proving that there are tens of thousands of high performing Black and Hispanic graduates of public middle school in NYC who are being denied entrance to the “tested” schools because of the biased regime of admissions by a single “aptitude” test — something not done by any college in the Ivy League, including Columbia. This gives advantages to those taking part in the bogus “test prep” regime. These middle school graduates are scoring 4s, the highest level, on the state achievement tests. They can and would do well at Stuyvesant, Brookyln Tech, and Bronx Science.
I support school integration, as a principle. Saying “you’re the real racist” because i am supporting steps towards alleviation of class and racial disparities is a Fox News rhetorical trick, the oldest one in the book. It won’t work and few will fall for it.
The other arguments Juan makes are either mis-directions and/or pure malarkey. Of course I’m in favor of putting more resources towards grammar schools facing disparities, but that is not opposed to an integration plan.
Juan said:
“Putting kids who are not adequately prepared into top middle schools helps no one, as it just sets them up to fail. And, like it or not, it stigmatizes the many minority students who are in those schools on their own merits as their peers assume they only got in through the back door (see recent NY Times reporting on the selective high schools).”
This paragraph is full of malarkey from beginning to end. You are saying that a kid going into the 6th grade, who got a “1” or “2” on the state test, is doomed to fail when he or she is placed in a class with students making “3” or “4”? Complete hogwash, and the principals of these schools disagree with you. There is also plenty of research that backs this up. Being surrounded with better performing peers, in a positive environment, helps them succeed. Since when is a 6th grader “doomed to fail”?
And then the idea of some kids getting into a middle school “on the merits” and other not, and these “others” being “stigmatized.” Seriously? You think in 6th grade, some kids will say to others, “you don’t deserve to be here”? You think kids get into middle school “through the back door”? Kids will only say this if the parents are racist and teach them to say it.
This argument is usually made regarding college admissions, ad is used against any sort of affirmative action. It’s interesting that the thousands of upper class white kids who get into top colleges because they are legacies, or play squash, or their parents gave $s, are never “stigmatized”.
Basically, Juan is arguing that we shouldn’t pursue integration, even in middle school, because some ignorant people will then make racist arguments against Black and Hispanic students. This argument doesn’t even deserve to be called “weak.”
If Juan is in favor of integration of the middle schools and doesn’t like the local parent/Chancellor plan (it was approved by the elected parent CEC), what integration plan would he pursue? How would he integrate the UWS’s segregated middle schools?
He’s using the same playbook he used here in San Francisco by calling anybody who disagrees with him a racist. He removed Algebra from middle school and anybody who disagreed with him was a racist. I’ve been watching him sing the same song in New York. He is a divisive authoritarian who refuses to listen. His daughter went to a screened high school in San Francisco with a well documented diversity problem and he gets mean when people bring it up because he is a hypocrite.