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3 TASK FORCE ON COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT
4 GOVERNANCE REFORM
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6 To obtain input regarding the replacement of New
7 York City's 32 existing community school boards
8 to ensure there is meaningful parental and
9 community participation in the community school
10 district governance structure
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12 1 Bowling Green
13 New York, New York
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15 December 10, 2002
16 10:22 A.M.
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2 MEMBERS OF THE TASK FORCE
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4 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS, Co-Chair
5 TERRI THOMSON, Co-Chair
6 ROBERT DeLEON
7 CASSANDRA MULLEN
8 KATHRYN WYLDE
9 ASSEMBLYMAN JOHN LAVELLE
10 ASSEMBLYMAN ROGER GREEN
11 ROBIN BROWN
12 JANE ARCE-BELLO
13 ASSEMBLYWOMAN AUDREY PHEFER
14 VIRGINIA KEE
15 GERALD LEVIN
16 ERNEST CLAYTON
17 ASSEMBLYMAN PETER RIVERA
18 C. BUNNY REDDINGTON
19 YANGHEE HAHN
20 JACK FRIEDMAN
21 RENEE C. HILL
22 PENELOPE KREITZER
23 ROSE MCKENNA
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2 LIST OF WITNESSES PAGE
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4 NOREEN CONNELL 14
5 Executive Director,
6 Education Priorities Panel
7 ELEANOR STIER 20
8 Co-Chair Committee on Education
9 Women's City Club in New York
10 ROBERT JACKSON 23
11 City Councilman
12 BIJOU MILLER 49
13 Co-President Parents Council
14 in District 2
15 TIM KREMER 59
16 Executive Director
17 NY State School Boards Association
18 ALTAGRACIA CRUZ 85
19 President P.S. 60 Parents
20 Teachers Association
21 LARRY WOOD 94
22 Organizer Goddard Riverside
23 Family Council
24 TERESA ARBOLEDA 106
25 Member Community School Board 3
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2 STEVEN S. GREENBERG 109
3 President Community School Board 27
4 ELLEN CALDWELL 136
5 Parent, Parent Teacher Association
6 DIEDRE MILLER 146
7 Parent, P.S. 153, District 6
8 RICHARD BARR 148
9 Co-Chair, Political Action Committee
10 of CSD 3 President's Council
11 LEONIE HAIMSON 160
12 Chair, Class Size Matters
13 SAM ANDERSON 177
14 Education Director
15 MICHAEL REBELL 192
16 Executive Director,
17 Campaign for Fiscal Equity
18 RONI WATTMAN 216
19 Education Advocate,
20 Community School Board 3
21 ELIZABETH SULLIVAN 226
22 Right to Education Project Coordinator
23 Center for Economic and Social Rights
24 JACQUELYN KAMIN 234
25 Panel on Educational Policy
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2 ROBERT PRESS 250
3 Vice President, Parent's Association
4 BARBARA BAER 256
5 for C. Virginia Fields
6 JACOB MORRIS 260
7 Director, Society for Equitable
8 Excellence
9 ELIZABETH SCHNEE 267
10 Co-Chair CPAC
11 MIDDY STREETER 279
12 PTA Co-President
13 JOHN FAGER 282
14 SIEGFRIED HOLZER 300
15 Member, Community School Board 6
16 CAROLYN PRAGER 310
17 Member, Advocates for Public
18 Representation
19 SANDRA RIVERS 324
20 1st Vice President
21 Community School Board 5
22 ELIZABETH CARSON 334
23 Co-founder of New York City Hold
24 Honest Open Logic Debate on
25 Mathematics Education Reform
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2 ROSEMARIE SEABROOK 344
3 EVELYN RODRIGUEZ 349
4 MARGARET DORNBAUM 356
5 FIOR CRUZ 364
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2 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Okay. I think
3 we have all the of the little gremlins out of the
4 sound system. I think everyone can hear me if
5 you can't raise your hand. Good morning
6 everybody. We are delighted that you are here to
7 join us, this is the first of five public
8 hearings that will be conducted by the Task Force
9 on community school district governance reform.
10 My name is Steve Sanders, I'm Chairman of the
11 Assembly Education Committee and I am also the
12 Co-Chair of this Task Force. To my right is Terri
13 Thomson who is the other Co-Chair of this Task
14 Force who you will hear from in just a moment or
15 two.
16 Let me just give a you a very very
17 brief synopsis of how this Task Force came into
18 being and what it's responsibilities and what
19 it's schedule is for the next couple of months.
20 In June of this year, the New York State
21 Legislature made sweeping reforms in the
22 governance of the New York City school system.
23 One of those changes was the elimination of the
24 local community school boards as of June 30 of
25 this year. As those school boards are phased out
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2 at the end of the school year, they have to be
3 replaced with something else and the something
4 else we hope will be something that will be more
5 effective, provide greater community
6 representation and parental input than the school
7 boards that have exist for 32 years was able to
8 do.
9 In that regard, the Legislation
10 created the Task Force. The Task Force was
11 actually appointed, the members were appointed by
12 Speaker Silver, Assembly Speaker Silver and the
13 Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno on October the
14 30. We have held two meetings of the Task Force
15 since then and now we are engaging in the public
16 hearing process. So we begin today in Manhattan,
17 we will have a hearing on Thursday in Queens,
18 followed by an another hearing in the Bronx a
19 week from this Thursday on December 19 and then
20 we will have a hearing on Staten Island Monday,
21 January the 6 and conclude with a public hearing
22 in Brooklyn on January the 16. The hearings are
23 meant to be as open and accessible as we can make
24 them. We know that with all endeavors the first
25 meeting is always a little bit chaotic and we
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2 apologize for that.
3 The hearings are all scheduled to --
4 each hearing is scheduled to have two phases. A
5 daytime phase, which will begin at about 10:00
6 in the morning and last until about 4:00 in the
7 afternoon and then an evening session from about
8 6:00 in the evening until about 9:00 or later as
9 the demand may be. We obviously have scheduled
10 and timed these hearing in such a way as to make
11 them as available and as accessible for parents
12 and people who work during the day. That is the
13 reason why we expect much of our testimony to
14 occur perhaps in the evening.
15 We will be issuing a preliminary
16 report as the law requires on December 15. That
17 preliminary report will contain the schedule of
18 meetings and hearings that have either already
19 taken place or are scheduled to take place.
20 February 15 the law requires this task force to
21 submit to the Governor and the Legislature a
22 report with a proposal and recommendations. We
23 will meet that deadline. We will issue that
24 report on February the 15 and then it will be the
25 job and the business of the New York State
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2 Legislature to consider those recommendations and
3 enact in the final analysis enact a replacement
4 to the local community school boards, sometime
5 early in 2003.
6 So we will proceed with our
7 schedule. We have a list of witnesses, we have
8 about 27 or 28, who have already signed up before
9 today's hearing. If there are people who have
10 not signed up in advance, we will try to
11 accommodate them as best as time permits as well.
12 Let me just turn now to Terri Thomson who is the
13 other Co-Chair of this Task Force.
14 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Thank you
15 Assemblyman. It's wonderful to see so many here
16 so early in the morning. I would just add a few
17 things to what Assemblyman Sanders said and first
18 and foremost, I would tell all of you that we are
19 very serious about this process and about the
20 work we have ahead of us. Our goal is to find
21 the right structure so that there's meaningful,
22 parental and community involvement in education.
23 And we're committed to doing that. I know I
24 speak for my colleagues here on the Task Force
25 when I tell you that we're coming into this with
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2 an open mind and the voice of the public and
3 particularly the voice of the parents. Very very
4 important to the to the work that we're doing.
5 I'd like to ask my colleagues here
6 on the Task Force to introduce themselves and
7 then we'll begin, we can start at far right I
8 think, Cassandra.
9 MS. MULLEN: My name is Cassandra
10 Mullen, I work in the Insurance Industry in lower
11 Manhattan and I have a high school aged child
12 currently attending New York City public school.
13 MS. WYLDE: Kathy Wylde and I'm with
14 the New York City Partnership.
15 ASSEMBLYMAN LAVELLE: John Lavelle,
16 I'm an Assemblyman from North Shore of Staten
17 Island and I serve on the Education Committee in
18 the State Assembly.
19 MS. BROWN: Robin Brown Chancellor's
20 Parent Advisory Council, it's the representation
21 of the 40 school district in New York City and I
22 currently have two children attending New York
23 City public schools.
24 MS. ARCE-BELLO: Jane Arce-Bello,
25 Community Activist from the Bronx.
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2 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFER: Assemblywoman
3 Audrey Phefer representing Queens the 23 Assembly
4 Districts Southern Queens.
5 MS. KEE: I am Virginia Kee, I'm the
6 founding member of the Chinese American Planning
7 Counsel, which is the largest service
8 organization for Asian Americans in the United
9 States. I've been a teacher, a classroom teacher
10 for 34 years.
11 MR. LEVINE: I'm Jerry Levine
12 retired CEO of AOL Time Warner. My family and I
13 are committed to education in the City of New
14 York particularly from the teacher's perspective.
15 MR. CLAYTON: I'm Ernest Clayton
16 President of the United Parents Association of
17 New York City. I have six sons in the New York
18 City school system.
19 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: I'm Assemblyman
20 Peter Rivera from the Bronx. I Chair the Puerto
21 Rican Hispanic Task Force and the Committee on
22 Cities.
23 MS. REDDINGTON: Bunny Reddington
24 from Staten Island. And I act as, right now,
25 serving as Vice Chair of District 31 Community
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2 School Board.
3 MS. HAHN: My name is Yanghee Hahn,
4 I am currently the Executive Vice President of
5 Korean American Association of Flushing and I
6 also work for New York City Commission of Human
7 Rights for the last 14 years.
8 MS. MCKENNA: My name is Rose
9 Mckenna and I'm a retired Teach and Supervisor
10 for New York City and I also served as a
11 community school board member in district 10 for
12 five years.
13 MR. FRIEDMAN: Good morning my name
14 Jack Friedman. I spent 10 years as member of
15 community school board 26. I'm a Special
16 Education Advisor for Councilman David Weppern
17 and I have two children in New York City high
18 schools.
19 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: As our hearing
20 notice indicated, we're asking people to limit
21 their remarks to about five minutes. I know that
22 people have a lot to say, but there are a lot of
23 people who also want to have their say. So we
24 will keeping time and we will hope that you try
25 to keep your remarks to five minutes. Of course,
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2 anyone who wishes to submit any written testimony
3 with greater detail or extended remarks, that
4 written testimony will be entered into the
5 record, it will be read by all of the members of
6 this Task Force and will be given equal wait to
7 any testimony that is actually presented. So
8 please try to keep your remarks to the five
9 minute time limit. We may have to interrupt you,
10 at the end of testimony there may be a few
11 question, but we're going to try to limit our
12 discussion up here so we can allow for the
13 maximum amount of time for people to inform of us
14 of their views, your views about how to provide
15 effective community and parental input at
16 community school district level. Terri.
17 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: I would like to
18 invite our first speaker Noreen Connell,
19 Executive Director of Education Priorities Panel.
20 MS. CONNELL: I guess the admonition
21 on time was meant for me specifically. So what
22 I'm going to do is I'm going to summarize
23 portions of my testimony. I didn't intend to
24 give it all, but good morning my name is Noreen
25 Connell, I'm Noreen Connell, I'm Executive
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2 Director of the Educational Priorities Panel, a
3 coalition of 27 civic, Parent and religious
4 organization that work together to improve the
5 quality of public education for New York City's
6 children. Thank you for holding extensive
7 hearings in all five boroughs.
8 The Education Priorities Panel
9 primary focus is on budget issues. So our
10 coalition rarely achieves consensus on government
11 matters. Because of this, EPP created a survey
12 for a member organization to identify with some
13 precision, where there was universal agreement on
14 a new governing structure at community school
15 district level. I imagine that our survey
16 questions parallel the four page or decisions
17 facing the Task Force. First, who shall serve?
18 Second, how should they be selected? Third, what
19 should be their role. Fourth, how should they be
20 given the support and preparation to carry out
21 thier role effectively. In reviewing the
22 responses I was surprise to discover that the
23 area of greatest agreement and greatest concern
24 was in providing the support and preparation
25 needed to so that members of this new governance
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2 structure can be effective.
3 Therefore, on behalf the Educational
4 Priorities Panel, I urge the member this Task
5 Force to give equal weight to the forth question,
6 even though the first three appear to be more
7 important decisions. And to develop strategies
8 for ensuring effectiveness that are reflected in
9 law. No matter who is select to serve on the new
10 district governance body, how they are selected
11 or their role, the Task Force need to craft ways
12 in which can you ensure that these individual
13 have the institutional support to function as a
14 respected body. At the end of my testimony I'll
15 review institutional support selected by EPP
16 member organizations. First I would like to
17 briefly summarize the area where there is
18 consensus on the first three questions.
19 Who should serve? EPP members
20 believe that the new governance structure at the
21 district level should represent parents,
22 community members and local business owners and
23 business representatives.
24 How should they be selected? Since
25 some of our member organizations favor elections,
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2 while other favor appointments by elected
3 officials. There is no EPP consensus on
4 selection, except in one area. Parents should be
5 selected by other parents in their home schools.
6 What should be their role? Among
7 our member there was complete agreement in only
8 two areas. Improving school performance and
9 review of the district budget. And I go in and
10 talk about how poorly prepared community school
11 boards work to fulfill these functions. Because
12 of their lack of training. Some of them got
13 training but it was very inadequate so I detail
14 my criticisms of their preparation. And then the
15 last and most important thing is effectiveness.
16 This brings me to the fourth and to
17 EPP, the most important question. How should
18 members of the new district governance body be
19 given the support in preparation to carry out
20 their role effectively. Professional staff
21 person. One of the reason the community planning
22 boards tend to be held in higher regard than
23 community school boards is that one oversight
24 body has the support of a district manager who
25 for example, can help their board members
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2 decipher the intricacy of the garbage routes and
3 zoning laws. Educational practices tend to be
4 equally complex and esoteric. Yet, community
5 school boards have had to be completely dependent
6 on the willingness of district staff to explain
7 or even identify them. Where there is a negative
8 relationship with the Superintendent, the lack of
9 information leads not only to paranoia but also,
10 in some cases, to time wasting exercises in
11 getting and unimportant data that is poorly
12 assemble and analyzed.
13 EPP strongly urges this Task Force
14 to consider providing a professional staff person
15 to support the work of the new district governing
16 body. And that this staff person not be on the
17 payroll of the school district. During these
18 difficult budget time it may take considerable
19 political effort to provide these funds but
20 without this type of staffing we fear that the
21 new district governing bodies will not be that
22 different from the current community school
23 boards. Let us be honest about how most
24 governing bodies function, especially at the
25 district or city wide level. At these hearings
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2 the word accountability would be used many times
3 and in many ways. But without a professional
4 staff person to assist lay members of the public
5 and parents, even simple oversight will be near
6 impossible to accomplish in any meaningful way.
7 Training, EPP member organizations
8 stresses the need for training in three areas.
9 One, understanding how school performance is
10 evaluated. Two, understanding curricula
11 instructional issues. Three, understanding school
12 and district budgeting. Though EPP survey did
13 not ask who should conduct the training I would
14 recommend that this training not be conducted by
15 district staff or funded out of the district
16 budget. One the reasons I make this
17 recommendation is that EPP has received reports
18 that some district superintendents have
19 eliminated funding for school leadership
20 training. Another reason is that members of the
21 new governance structure body should receive the
22 same training is treated no matter what district
23 they represent.
24 Though it is difficult to legislate
25 the training be high quality and most assessment
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2 reports about the quality of training tend to be
3 less than candid, I urge the Task Force to take
4 time to strategize about ways in which High
5 quality training and assessment can be assured.
6 Then the last aspect is clearly understood
7 operating procedures. At a minimum EPP members
8 agree there should be public announcements and
9 schedules of meetings. That meetings should be
10 public and some held in the evening so that
11 working parents can attend. There should be a
12 clear process for selecting the chairperson. One
13 organization suggested that there be bylaws for
14 this governing body an option that was not
15 included in our survey but merits consideration.
16 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Thank you very
17 much. Are there any questions? Noreen you set the
18 tine right on the dot, 5 minutes, we appreciate
19 that. We appreciate your testimony thank you
20 very much.
21 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Noreen would you
22 provide us written copy. Eleanor Stier, Co-Chair
23 Committee on Education, Women City Club of New
24 York.
25 MS. STIER: I'm not going to break
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2 the record here. Noreen is known for giving much
3 longer and detailed testimony and I'm known for
4 giving very short and to the point testimony.
5 Co-Chairs Thomson, and Sanders and members of the
6 Task Force on the community school district
7 governance reform. My name Eleanor Stier. I am
8 Co-Chair of the Education Committee of the Women
9 City Club of New York. Thank you for the
10 opportunity to comment. The Women's City Club of
11 New York is an 87 year old none partisan,
12 non-profit organization which work to shape
13 public policy effecting the New York Community
14 through responsible participation. We have long
15 worked to improve educational opportunities for
16 the children of New York City.
17 We have no specific recommendations
18 regarding any structure to take the place of
19 community school boards. However, we do call you
20 on you to you be guided in your deliberations by
21 three major principals. One, any plan for the
22 reform of school governance must spell out
23 responsibility and accountability at each level.
24 For the schools, for the districts, for the
25 central administration. Two, any plan to
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2 restructure school governance must have the
3 concomitant revision of adequate resources to
4 support instruction. Otherwise this will be an
5 empty exercise. Three, whatever structure is
6 developed, there must be an opportunity for
7 parents and the community to be heard. We urge
8 to you abide by these principals as you
9 contemplate change in governance.
10 One other point, those of us who
11 have fought long and hard to improve the public
12 school system for all New York City school
13 children also consider ourselves stakeholders.
14 We have a stake in the future of our school
15 children here in New York City. We are dedicated
16 to helping them become the educated citizens of
17 New York City who will contribute to it's civic
18 and economic life. So be sure to include us
19 among those you believe have the greatest
20 interest in improving the school system. Thank
21 you.
22 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Any questions?
23 Well, we thank you very much for your testimony
24 and for the involvement that the Women City Club
25 has had in the civic affairs of New York City and
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2 education particular for many years. Thank you so
3 much.
4 MS. STIER: Thank you.
5 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Councilman Robert
6 Jackson.
7 MR. JACKSON: Good morning. It's a
8 great day isn't it? Any day that we are alive is
9 a good day. Co-Chairs Sanders and Thomson, good
10 morning and to all members of this esteem
11 commission Task Force whatever you want to call
12 it but it's a good one. I'm looking at the
13 representatives here and I recognize many of you
14 as individuals that have been involved in
15 education and I must say that it's a good one.
16 I've testified in other -- in front of other
17 groups and I was saying to not this particular
18 group but other groups, I hope that the group is
19 not a rubber stamp for the system. And based on
20 the individuals that I see up here, it is my
21 belief that this is not a rubber stamp. So I'm
22 very honored to be in front of you in order to
23 give you my thoughts and feelings about this very
24 very important matter.
25 And it comes from a foundation and
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2 you must understand, I am an advocate public
3 education and I've said before and I've said
4 publicly, that my last daughter she attends
5 private school. And I'm not a shamed to say that
6 and I don't want to hide. I want to be truthful
7 to all of you. But I'm a public school advocate
8 from the day I was born until right now. I look
9 at my children and they are 27, 22 and 16, and
10 look at the education they have had and the in
11 the public school system and I look at the
12 involvement of myself and my wife as parents and
13 I tell you they've received a decent education.
14 All things considered and obviously it could have
15 been better and it could have been a lot worse.
16 But I'm hear to give you some insight from my
17 perspective as a parent and as a former school
18 board member for 15 years on community school
19 board six, as a former Parent Association
20 President involved with the Parents Association
21 at P.S.I.S. 187 in Manhattan for 20 continuous
22 years and now as a legislator in the city
23 council representing northern Manhattan in
24 districts five and districts six. District five
25 if you don't know is Harlem and district six is
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2 Washington Heights and Inwood.
3 I represent both districts on the
4 city council. But also I come in front of you as
5 the lead plaintiff in CFE the Campaign for Fiscal
6 Equity versus the State of New York and I say to
7 that CFE would have never happened if it wasn't
8 for school board president and that school board
9 president was me. So when people talk about
10 school boards, I will give one example and
11 there's many many more and Jack Friedman and
12 Virginia Kee and who else is on the school board
13 here, I'm looking around, these are people on the
14 school board that I work with and they have done
15 positive things on behalf of the children of New
16 York City.
17 I did not support Mayoral control
18 initially, as a member of the city council. I
19 believe that school boards are an institution
20 that should be mere in New York City just like
21 there they're everybody every where else around
22 the state. But obviously I did not make that
23 decision. I mean, Steve and Peter and Audrey,
24 you and your colleagues up in Albany made that
25 decision and you made it based on, I assume,
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2 everything that you thought was good and best for
3 our children. So I accept that, and I've also
4 accepted the fact that the Mayor has total
5 control of the system. I've said to myself and
6 I've said to the Mayor and others that I'm going
7 to give them the time to prove themselves as far
8 as to make sure it works before I start to
9 criticize the system.
10 But my suggestion is this, that if
11 in fact school boards are going to be done away
12 with as the end of June of 2003, is that correct.
13 Then I was involved in the leadership team at my
14 kid's school I think the last year, year and a
15 half. And the leadership teams, if in fact they
16 are running properly, if they are funded
17 appropriately, if the team members are given the
18 appropriate training that is necessary, that
19 could be a foundation for a structure in the
20 districts where you have a district leadership
21 team that could be basically playing the role of
22 the school board. Obviously when you have 28, 30
23 schools in a district it would be a little
24 unwielding to have every member of a leadership
25 team to the district-wide team, so can you have
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2 seven, nine, eleven, a certain number that may
3 deem appropriate and unwielding in order to be
4 like a balance. Where instead of you having
5 people not having any structure whatsoever at the
6 district level, that you have a district-wide
7 leadership team that could be elected from all of
8 the representatives of the various schools.
9 Because you do need a balance between the
10 district superintendent and the staff there and
11 some organizational structure that represents the
12 parents in the district.
13 It's not the same to say well the
14 parents can go talk to the Superintendent or go
15 talk to the Director or of Community Affairs at
16 the Superintendent's office, because you know one
17 thing, all of those individuals work for the
18 Superintendent and not one of them worked for the
19 parents. And so you need to have, in my opinion,
20 individuals that are going to be advocating
21 number one, for the parents and the children of
22 their particular district. So if in fact there's
23 going to be any type of structure, a
24 recommendation could be a district-wide structure
25 of a leadership team that is funded and you need
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2 to have funding in order to train and in order to
3 carry out the roles and responsibilities of that
4 particular district leadership steam team. So I
5 would think that this could be a valuable type of
6 situation.
7 And the same thing could happen on
8 the city-wide basis. So you would have a
9 city-wide district leadership team that could
10 have representative from each borough. Because
11 basically what you're doing is you're removing a
12 structure an organization of school board members
13 that were elected. The only, the only elected
14 representatives in the city of New York, the sole
15 purpose is to represent the district educational
16 system there and representative the parent. The
17 only body, and I don't care what anybody says,
18 most school boards, all of them, were trying to
19 do their best and just like most legislators try
20 to do thier best in carrying out thier
21 responsibilities, we know that some of them do
22 not. We know that some of them are corrupt and
23 some of them have gone to jail. But overall,
24 school boards have done a real good job and I am
25 one shining example of that particular system.
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2 And I'll say that to myself because if you don't
3 toot your own horn whose going to toot it for
4 you. So I say that on I'm one shining example
5 and there are many many more that will testify to
6 this esteemed body. So that's one example.
7 I just want to say to you also, that
8 when you deliberate and make a recommendation,
9 think about the children that we represent and I
10 know all of you will think about that. But think
11 about the parents. That the parents need to have
12 a voice that they can go to that do not work for
13 the system. Because I will tell you as an
14 individual, that have been involved in talking to
15 the Superintendents, I've talked to the
16 Chancellors and talked to staff, they work for
17 the system and they will be told how to be behave
18 and what to do and where to go and where not to
19 go and the bottom line is if they do not, they
20 will not be there. So you need to have
21 representatives that will speak out and advocate
22 on behalf of parents. And I come today to share
23 that with you, but also to listen to what others
24 have to say, because we, I am on the Education
25 Committee of the City Council, we will be holding
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2 hearings our ourselves concerning this matter and
3 other matters relating to this and I need the
4 insight of everyone else that's behind me that's
5 going to testify this morning and to help me to
6 continue to develop my knowledge and expertise in
7 this area.
8 So I thank you for the opportunity
9 to come in front of you this morning and I'll be
10 glad to answer any questions that you may have.
11 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Any questions?
12 Assemblyman Rivera.
13 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: I just have 2
14 brief question Councilman. First question is, you
15 were on the school leadership team am I correct?
16 MR. JACKSON: Yes I was.
17 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: What were the
18 weaknesses of the school leadership team, not the
19 strengths but the weaknesses of the leadership
20 team that you participated on?
21 MR. JACKSON: Well see, I think that
22 -- and this is my experience on the leadership
23 team on school boards and different
24 organizations. Many parents come in and they're
25 not given the appropriate training and they're
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2 thrown right in and they're thrown in with
3 educators and others that have been in the system
4 a long time. And they start to talk amongst
5 themselves and around the table just like, you
6 know, normal people would talk. They start
7 talking with acronyms and this that and the
8 others, and the parents, you know, they're sit
9 sitting there obviously because they're not in
10 the type of power position as others are in and
11 so they listen and they learn, but also they
12 don't know and so they're afraid to say excuse
13 me, what is that acronym, I don't know what that
14 mean. And you know one thing, they're many
15 acronym that I don't know and I've been in the
16 system, and in fact, the Deputy Mayor, Dennis
17 Walcot was at the Black and Latino and Asian
18 caucus held in educational forum and he said this
19 acronym, I think it was SOS, and I asked him what
20 was SOS because I didn't know what it was. And
21 what it was second opportunity schools. But you
22 know one thing, he admitted that, you know, he
23 thought for a second he said I really don't know.
24 And that's okay. He was honest enough to say he
25 didn't know and believe me there's a lot of
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2 things that I don't know. But people are afraid
3 to ask, because, you know, they don't want to
4 make themselves look like they're not
5 knowledgeable about it and then people don't take
6 the time in order to train the individuals and
7 bring them along and give them the rules and
8 regulations to make sure they understand it. And
9 that's very very important in the process. In
10 order to play the game, you must know the rules.
11 If you don't know the rules of the
12 game then people will take advantage and use you
13 to their end. Some people, some people will take
14 you by the hand to try to educate you, okay, but
15 most people will use you to the end that they
16 want to achieve. So knowing the rules of the
17 game and then being trained, as a codrey of
18 parents, how to understand Robert Rules of Order.
19 What the various acronyms that are used in this
20 educational system? What are the steps to
21 procedures? What are the appeals processes if in
22 fact you disagreed? Who has control over the
23 money of the school leadership team? What is the
24 power and the authority of the Principal and the
25 role of the Principal in the school leadership
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2 team? All of those things have to be known to
3 people that are going to be involved so that they
4 can then determine whether or not things are
5 being done right or they're being done wrong,
6 they know how to make objection and know how to
7 make corrections and I think that those are some
8 of the weakness in --
9 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: Just one other
10 brief question. My question is brief because we
11 have so many speakers. The other question I have
12 is, you spoke I think about a I think about a
13 school board leadership team being selected by
14 the local leadership team am I correct?
15 MR. JACKSON: A school leadership
16 team as a district.
17 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: A district
18 leadership team?
19 MR. JACKSON: That's correct.
20 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: Now that would
21 replace the school board am I correct?
22 MR. JACKSON: That's a possibility
23 yes.
24 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: What would be
25 the relationship between -- other than the local
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2 leadership team electing or helping select the
3 central leadership team, what would be the
4 relationship between both or would there be any
5 ties any other relationships between both of
6 them?
7 MR. JACKSON: Yes I think the
8 relationship is obviously from an empowerment
9 point of you, empowerment. The local and there is
10 about 28 schools in my district, will empower to
11 talk about district-wide committee to talk about
12 district-wide concerns and to deal with the
13 Superintendent and the appropriate staff. But
14 also, you have to have a reporting back mechanism
15 so that everyone is in the flow. The flow is
16 coming up and decisions and discussions are being
17 had there and it's going back down. And that's
18 very very important in the process because
19 basically that's what many many school boards do
20 right now in that information flow.
21 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Ernest.
22 MR. CLAYTON: How are you doing your
23 Honorable Robert Jackson?
24 MR. JACKSON: Hey Ernest how are you
25 doing? What do you mean Honorable, you don't call
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2 me Honorable you call me Robert.
3 MR. CLAYTON: Okay Robert. Noreen
4 Connell made a good statement that the
5 alternative body should have an independent staff
6 person to carry out so called day-to-day
7 operations of this new entity. Do you have any
8 suggestions where the funding should come from
9 because she stated that funding should not come
10 from the Department of Education. Would you have
11 any ideas where such funding could come from?
12 MR. JACKSON: Well, concerning the
13 city's budget right now -- but I think that the
14 money should come from the Board of Education or
15 the department of Education. And I haven't had a
16 discussion with Noreen on that, but let me tell
17 you, what are we dealing with? We are dealing
18 with our children's education. And if the money
19 is allocated, I'm not saying that the department
20 of Education has to hire -- I mean has to
21 determine whose hired. It could be a
22 district-wide leadership team makes a
23 determination and that individual should report
24 to the district-wide Chair or the Executive
25 Committee and not report to the Superintendent or
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2 what have you.
3 But let's assume that that can't be
4 the case and I'm going to have a discussion with
5 Noreen a little later then maybe, in my opinion,
6 if you're talking about you have what, how many
7 community school districts do we have right now,
8 32 and if you have a staff person that's assigned
9 from 32 districts to deal with the district
10 leadership team, the funding should come from
11 somewhere, even if it has to come from the city
12 counsel and the Mayor and not directly through
13 the Department of Education. Because where does
14 the department of education budget comes from?
15 The state legislature and the city council.
16 That's where it comes from, right. So even if it
17 doesn't come directly you be know from the
18 Department of Education, then let come from the
19 State Legislature and the city council.
20 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: First I want to
21 say thank you to you fro your many many years of
22 support for advocacy fro our children. We really
23 appreciate all you've done. I have a very basic
24 question. And this is probably the core of why
25 we're here. You've been a school board member,
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2 you're a parent, you've been on the school
3 leadership team, why is it important to have
4 parents engaged at local level in the schools and
5 in thier district, how does that support improved
6 education.
7 MR. JACKSON: Well because the
8 parents give the parents perspective. And when
9 school leaders are talking about curriculum and
10 they're talking about ways that the school is
11 going to be changed administratively or what type
12 of food programs should be brought into the
13 school, what type of after school programs as far
14 as music, art, theater or tutoring, parent
15 should be involved in that. Parents need to be
16 involved in every aspect and some people may
17 argue that parents should not set curriculum. I
18 think that parents should be involved in every
19 aspect of the children's education, from
20 curriculum development, from after school
21 programs, from school management. Not to say
22 that they have the final say, but if you're part
23 of a team if you're part of the a team, then as a
24 team member you will have a say in the direction.
25 And so parents need to be an intrical part, not
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2 only at home, but in the classroom.
3 The same as all of the parents and
4 other people elected me to be an intrical part of
5 making decisions in New York City about how the
6 funding gets spent and where the priorities are.
7 So I take all of that into consideration and say
8 it is very very important that parents be
9 directly involved in the decision making process.
10 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Thank you.
11 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Assemblywoman
12 Phefer.
13 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFER: Thank you.
14 Just a question and I guess as people come up
15 it's a question that if they can address too. By
16 the way good morning. They talk about school
17 districts, the 32 school districts, but we heard
18 in a lot of testimony previously when we were
19 doing school governance about the disconnect of
20 the high schools. How do you see that flowing
21 into your creation or your suggestion.
22 MR. JACKSON: Well you know, I
23 haven't really begin that much thought but
24 obviously high schools are very very important
25 and I think that there's a movement to try to
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2 move high school more, integrate them more
3 within the districts overall, so that there is
4 continuity of the educational services that are
5 being provided our children. So I see more
6 smaller high schools being developed and being
7 incorporated into a wholistic approach as far as
8 education, it should not be K to 8 then they go
9 off to high school then the curriculum doesn't
10 continue and they have to learn a new methodology
11 and the whole getting used to a new environment.
12 I prefer a wholistic approach to education as far
13 as the continuity of our children. I mean my
14 kids went through a K to 8 school. So it was K
15 to 8, nine years and then off to high school.
16 I would love to see an environment
17 where it can continue within the whole district.
18 I know that many districts are moving in that
19 direction, but concerning the whole situation as
20 far as parent involvement, I don't know whether
21 or not, for example, you would have high school
22 leadership team in each borough. The same as I
23 know when I was involved with Humanities High
24 School, that my daughter attended, as the Parents
25 Association President at Humananities High
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2 School, we had a borough-wide high school that we
3 met at high school superintendent's office. So
4 you need to have that structure in place also at
5 high school level and maybe a borough-wide
6 leadership team of the various high schools may
7 be an appropriate structure depending on what
8 structure is in place.
9 But whatever structure it is you
10 need to have the continuity of the structure at
11 the local levels that will continue through high
12 school in my opinion. And I haven't given it
13 much thought but it need to be there.
14 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFER: Thank you.
15 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: We are joined by
16 Assemblyman Roger Green from Brooklyn and we
17 still have a couple of more questions of
18 Councilman Jackson. Mr. Levin.
19 MR. LEVIN: Councilman Jackson, good
20 morning how are you. To get back to the
21 fundamental question of the role of parents. Is
22 there a distinctions between the institutional
23 involvement of the parents in whatever this
24 committee recommends to take the place of the
25 community school board, that's one kind of
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2 parental involvement and then there's the
3 day-to-day, one on one activity that every parent
4 has or should have with children in their own
5 family and their work in school. So it's hard to
6 ask the question, but, is there away where
7 whatever we might want to come up with
8 institutionally, really encourages that kind of
9 parental involvement as being perhaps more or
10 equally important to simply playing a role in the
11 normal curriculum development budgets and other
12 institutional things. In other words, how do we
13 raise the consciousness level of parental
14 involvement for the children in that family?
15 MR. JACKSON: I think that you do
16 that in many ways but as far as this esteem
17 group here, you do that by having a parent
18 friendly structure, whatever structure that you
19 put in place, that will invite them to come in.
20 That you make sure that the systems are in place,
21 that they are supporting, that they are as I said
22 before educated as to the new structure that
23 they're going to be involved in their role and
24 everyone else's role in that. So, an educated
25 consumer is our best customer, I didn't coin that
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2 phrase, who was it who it was Sye Sims or whoever
3 coined it. And that's the same thing, that's a
4 real situation as far as parent involvement. So,
5 the friendlier it is and to make sure that the
6 support systems are in place to educate them. So
7 that -- and not only that but if they need
8 someone if the committee or the district, they
9 need someone to do research and do the work that
10 they have the support staff to do that. And I
11 don't know whether it's one or two whether or not
12 it's solely to them or it's from the district but
13 whatever it is, it needs to be in place. I think
14 that that's very very important.
15 I think also it's important for you
16 as a commission to say, how important it is that
17 parents get involved in their kids education from
18 helping them with their homework, for making sure
19 that they get on bed on time, getting up in the
20 morning, having breakfast and taking them to
21 school, the little things that need to be done,
22 we need to communicate that to parents that they
23 have an obligation to do that. And that it's not
24 okay when you bring your kids into school late
25 and so what you're doing is setting a tone of
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2 being on target, being positive and being
3 involved. And when you set that tone and you give
4 them the opportunity to be involved in other
5 aspects, then what will result is that they will
6 be involved not only with there kids doing
7 homework but they'll get involved in the Parents
8 Association, they'll get involved in the
9 leadership team, both at the school and at the
10 district or city-wide level and they will run for
11 office. The same as I did many others have.
12 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Ms. Brown.
13 MS. BROWN: I just have a question.
14 Some would say that in order to hold someone more
15 accountable in the school system as we know it
16 that there would be -- people would need to know
17 the questions to ask. And we all talked about
18 training, who would you recommend to do training
19 for the community as a whole since it seems to be
20 a lot of misnomer with the public as to what goes
21 on in a school. So who would you recommend to do
22 training for parents for the community so that
23 they can be more being effective in whatever body
24 is to be placed as a school board or in fact if
25 you didn't replace the school board, since we
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2 know that the training that's currently provided
3 is not enough to be effective to move the schools
4 forward.
5 MR. JACKSON: Well, I think there
6 needs to be a combination of -- if we talk about
7 -- let's assume there was a leadership team
8 structure in place. I think maybe a Task Force
9 of parent leaders and other CBA's that are
10 involved from the nitty gritty point of view and
11 also from a system-wide point of view of the
12 Department of Education. So a combination of the
13 two, because I've attended school board
14 trainings. Maybe because I was a school board
15 member with many years of experience, maybe, and
16 have been involved knowing the structure of
17 school boards and maybe because of my background
18 as a union leader.
19 I'm a union leader, Staff Director
20 of a Union, so knowing structures and
21 organizations is very very important and maybe
22 because you know, Robert Rules of Order, the book
23 that we had as community school board 6, had
24 many many tabs underlines and highlighted,
25 because I've read through that in order to make
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2 sure that I understand Robert Rules of Order. So
3 in my opinion, you need not only individuals from
4 the Department of Education or from the
5 organizational point of you view, but you need
6 CBO's. You need people that have been in there
7 as parent, leaders, that have been through the
8 struggles and talk about the problems that they
9 had in dealing with the Department of Education
10 or other organizations in the struggle to
11 advocate for their children. So in my opinion,
12 Robin, a combination of both would be very very
13 important and not just a one.
14 MS. BROWN: I just have one other
15 question.
16 MR. JACKSON: It's up to the /KOE
17 chairs it's not up to me.
18 MS. BROWN: In terms of school
19 leadership teams, would you advocate for
20 increasing the number of parents participating on
21 those teams so that it stays a genuine parent
22 voice, since we do know that they're unions that
23 are also represented on those leadership teams?
24 MR. JACKSON: My understanding and
25 correct me if I'm wrong, it's still at least 50
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2 percent parents, is that correct, on a school
3 leadership team. And so what we have to do is we
4 have to encourage parents and I think that when I
5 was a parent on the school leadership team I
6 believe there was a stipend, is that correct, I
7 think I got a little stipend. I think stipends
8 are very very important especially when you look
9 at the total parent population of New York City.
10 If New York City is considered an average wealth
11 district by the State of New York and that's
12 based on the fact that all New York City
13 residents income is taken into considering an
14 average wealth districts and this is throughout
15 CFE litigation I'm talking right now, but if you
16 isolate only the parents of New York City school
17 children, New York City would be considered a
18 poor district, based on the income of the
19 parents of all of New York City school children.
20 So I think stipends are very very important to
21 help parent to be involved in school leadership
22 teams.
23 So I think to encourage parents to
24 be involved and if they're not involved, by
25 having the school reach out to ask to advocate
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2 people to get involved, or to have consultants
3 CBO's or people like the United Parents
4 Association to be able to say, listen, we don't
5 have 50 percent participation, we only have 25
6 percent. These are the reasons why we want you
7 to come in and reach out to the parent. Because
8 I remember going back at the school board, when
9 we had problems and situations at schools with
10 Parents Association, we would reach out to the
11 governing body, United Parents Association and
12 say, you know, at that time it was I O this time
13 it's Ernest Clayton who is the President, can you
14 send someone in to help we have a problem at a
15 particular parent organization. And they would do
16 that to help us out.
17 Thus, you know, when you have as you
18 know conflicts on a Parent's Association, if I
19 got involved as a school board member, even
20 though sometimes you try to mediate and not take
21 sides, one side or the other side is going to
22 believe that I'm taking sides. So you try to
23 bring in an independent organization like United
24 Parents Association, which goal is to help parent
25 to help have someone mediate so that we as a
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2 school board member don't take sides. So have
3 you to encourage 50 percent or more.
4 MS. BROWN: I'm sorry, I wasn't too
5 clear. Would you advocate for increasing the
6 parent membership on school leadership teams from
7 say 50 percent to 75 percent?
8 MR. JACKSON: In my opinion, I
9 think that the more parents are involved, the
10 better off we will be. Because the foundation of
11 anything as far as the system is concerned is to
12 make sure that their children are educated. So
13 the answer would be, I think 50 percent is a good
14 mix. I think if can you increase that, I would.
15 But I'm not sure quite frankly Robin, whether or
16 not we have 50 percent participation right now.
17 So if we don't even have 50 percent
18 participation, I think the primary goal would be
19 to let's get 50 percent participation, but
20 clearly if there's room to have more parent
21 participation, then there should be involved even
22 more.
23 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Okay, are there
24 any other questions fro Mr. Jackson? Well,
25 Councilman let me thank you very much for being
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2 here and in my estimation, your work on the city
3 council and your work as the lead plaintiff and
4 your work as President and a member of the school
5 board exemplifies what a public official ought to
6 be like and we thank you very much for all of
7 your hard work and efforts.
8 MR. JACKSON: Well thank you, I'm
9 going to sit and listen to everybody else.
10 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: We'd like to
11 invite Bijou Miller, Co-President of Parents
12 Council of District 2.
13 MS. MILLER: I'm Bijou Miller, I'm
14 Co-President of Parent Council for District 2,
15 but more importantly, I am the proud mom of two
16 daughters, one in elementary school in district 2
17 and the other in middle school in district 3. I
18 have to say that, without a doubt, they attend 2
19 of the best public schools in New York State. I
20 think it has to be acknowledge time and again
21 that there are hundreds of excellent schools in
22 New York City. Forgive me if I'm wrong but my
23 impression at times is that some of the folks up
24 in Albany have this idea, oh the New York City
25 schools it's I disaster, it's a mess, they're
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2 failing and I'm hear to just say it's simply not
3 true. Which is not to say that there are not
4 plenty of problems with the system.
5 Contrary to popular belief the
6 recent budget cuts have seriously impacted the
7 classroom. And of course, two of the other big
8 problems facing the system, which have been
9 mentioned before are communication and
10 accountability. The current school boards may
11 have been flawed and out lived there usefulness,
12 but at least they provided a forum for parent to
13 air there concerns and grievances. In the
14 current climate of uncertainty, as to whether we
15 will even have school districts in the future,
16 there are rumors to that effect, it is absolutely
17 imperative that parents have their say in their
18 children's education.
19 Parents have valid concerns about
20 curriculum, standardized testing, and the ever
21 increasing test prep that takes precious hours
22 away from the curriculum, class sizes, there are
23 29 kids in my daughter's first grade class and we
24 are not happy about it, and the safety and
25 security of our schools as well as many other
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2 issues. If there's no effective body to listen
3 to and relay these concerns to the Department of
4 Education, then communication and accountability
5 problems will become much worse. Parents will
6 not stand for this and by effective, I mean that
7 these bodies should have more power than the old
8 school boards ended up with. Superintendents,
9 Principals and teachers are not just a
10 accountable to the Chancellor, they're
11 accountable to the students they serve and the
12 parents who put those students in their care.
13 Ultimately the Chancellor makes the decision but
14 he should respect and heed the input of parents.
15 It's been suggested that the school
16 boards be replaced by school leadership teams at
17 each school but I find that to be an inadequate
18 solution, for reasons mentioned before. I think
19 unless they are restructured and strengthened
20 they should not be considered as an alternative.
21 Presidents and parents councils are effective in
22 providing parents with information and networking
23 among schools. These groups have facets that
24 could be used to replace the school boards but I
25 think in order to have truly balanced groups,
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2 they should be made up of more than parents.
3 Whatever replacement you come up
4 with and you should not leave a void. The members
5 should come from the spectrum of active school
6 groups. This includes parents, teachers,
7 administrators and community groups. I agree
8 with others that these new panels should not be
9 chosen through election but should be appointed
10 within the various representative groups. In
11 other words parents who eventually sit on these
12 boards should be selected by parents and teachers
13 by teachers et cetera. Politicians should not
14 have anything to do with this process, in my
15 opinion, and these opinions are not just mine,
16 they're held by many parents in my schools.
17 The bottom line is that parents
18 should be at the table when crucial decisions are
19 being made about their children's education, it's
20 as simple as that. And I really believe that in
21 order to have successful schools, there must be
22 parental involvement and input. Without a truly
23 effective concerned body to hear and to take
24 action on behalf of parents, a chance to make the
25 school system stronger and better will be lost.
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2 Thank you for your time and attention.
3 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Levin.
4 MR. LEVIN: If I can just follow up
5 with a fundamental question. Your children are in
6 two schools that you've characterize as excellent
7 schools, can you just tell us briefly what makes
8 an excellent school?
9 MS. MILLER: I think it's three
10 things --first of all, excellent administration.
11 Both of the schools have very very strong
12 Principals who have a vision and the parents
13 share that vision and the teachers share that
14 vision. The schools work very well in a team
15 work situation. The principal -- I'll mention
16 the schools, one is P.S. 77 it's lower lab
17 school, just excellent excellent teachers and the
18 other one is the Delta program M.S. 54. The
19 teachers are excellent the students are I have to
20 say, they are -- they have to jump through hoops
21 to get into these schools but nonetheless they're
22 academically rigorous and I just do feel there's
23 team work. The parents are incredibly involved
24 in both these schools especially in lab school. I
25 can tell you we do a lot of work. We're in the
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2 classroom, we work for the school on hundreds of
3 levels, it's just you know, we out fit the
4 classrooms, we paint we do -- and we've raised
5 money. It's the reality of the situation with all
6 the budget cuts.
7 So it's -- but I do have to say, I
8 do think strong leadership from the top, meaning
9 the principal and also support of the district at
10 the district level. I mean, I think the
11 Superintendents in both district have been very
12 strong in supporting these schools.
13 MS. KEE: Ms. Miller I was wondering
14 how you -- as the Co-President of the present
15 council in District 2, how you have involved poor
16 none English speaking parents of Chinatown or
17 the Latino parents of the lower east side?
18 MS. MILLER: I have to say that I
19 personally have not done nearly enough to
20 encourage. I'm new to the job. I think there
21 should be definite outreach to everyone. I go to
22 the school board meetings and I see that parents
23 feel that they are comfortable to come and speak
24 to the school board about issues and I wish they
25 would -- actually I wish more parents would come
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2 to parent council because we have information and
3 networking -- you know schools help other
4 schools within parent council at least in
5 district 2, I feel and I think that's a very good
6 point. I'm remiss I should be doing more.
7 MS. KEE: Also I know that with the
8 low income parents and the working poor, possibly
9 their involvement that they would want to give is
10 not possible if you're working 12 hours a day and
11 therefore, they cannot come and paint, so how
12 would you suggest that we correct this inequity?
13 MS. MILLER: That's a really good
14 point. I think this is -- the other thing we
15 have which hasn't been mention is we have a very
16 active PTA and the PTA encourages parents to do
17 whatever they can. It doesn't have to be coming
18 in and working the classroom. It can be -- we
19 hold workshops for parents to help, you know,
20 second language, parents who have a problem with
21 English and with the homework situation. We have
22 workshops for those parents so that they can help
23 their children with homework. We -- the PTA
24 really does try to do an outreach to get parents
25 more involved in whatever they can possibly do.
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2 Yes, I understand there are parents that are
3 working long hours and aren't able to come but
4 they are just as concerned as the parents who are
5 more active.
6 MS. KEE: Do you think interpreters
7 would be helpful in your workshop?
8 MS. MILLER: Yes. Absolutely.
9 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: I think you
10 indicated that the Asian American parents and the
11 Latino parents aren't as involved as they should
12 be in your district?
13 MS. MILLER I don't know that that's
14 necessarily the case. I wish there were more --
15 the parents that seem to come to parent council
16 meetings do seem to come --
17 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: Who should be
18 responsible for getting a segment of a population
19 who may not be as engaged as they should be?
20 Should it be the school system that should be
21 responsible, should it be other parents, should
22 it be a not for profit organization or a CBO,
23 community based organization, who do you think
24 should be doing the outreach in trying to get
25 these parents to become engaged?
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2 MS. MILLER: Well as I said, I think
3 you can start with each school's PTA but also if
4 there was a nonprofit group that was willing to
5 go in and say, hey there are these sources for
6 you, there are these places you can go -- you go
7 to a parent council meeting, go to a school board
8 meeting, you know, I will say that a lot my
9 parents don't come to PTA meetings in lab school
10 and part of it is because of time constraints.
11 And they feel that they do enough within the
12 school and they leave it to people like me to go
13 out to all the meetings and the rallies and the
14 things, and it is hard. That's one major part of
15 parental involvement because parents don't have a
16 lot of time at the end of the day. But I do think
17 if there were a non-profit group -- and if all
18 these groups UPA, I mean UPA is a really good --
19 they really try. I know, they send me things and
20 they're definitely groups out there that EPP --
21 you know, I just think if we can all join hands
22 and have a big meeting of all these great groups
23 AQE, and just send people, parents that are very
24 active out with the message to schools.
25 And being Co-President at parent
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2 council I feel I should go to other schools and
3 try and bring in parents to my group at any rate.
4 So yes, I think it's a combination of a lot
5 different groups.
6 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: I have a
7 question. Thank you for your very thoughtful
8 comments, before you go I have one question. You
9 spoke about your children's schools, 2 very high
10 functioning well run schools. Have you served on
11 the school leadership team of any of those
12 schools?
13 MS. MILLER: I have not. I've been
14 on the executive board.
15 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Do you have any
16 knowledge of how the school leadership team
17 functions?
18 MS. MILLER: My knowledge is -- we
19 had you know the precursor, the thing before SLT
20 was called, I forget what it was called but I
21 went to it a lot, and so we had one of that, it
22 was very strong -- the way I see it and they they
23 do complain about it because I don't think the
24 parents feel that they do get enough training
25 actually. But they deal with curriculum issues
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2 and they deal with forming or writing up that
3 comprehensive education plan, not every year but
4 usually every year. But no, that's my concern.
5 I don't think that they really deal with if they
6 were to be the voice of the parents, they don't
7 currently have that voice.
8 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Thank you very
9 much.
10 MS. MILLER: Thank you.
11 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Okay. We thank
12 you very much for your testimony and for your
13 activity in school district 2. Our next witness
14 is Mr. Tim Kremer, Executive Director of New York
15 State School Boards Association.
16 MR. KREMER: Good morning. In order
17 for me to stay the five minutes I'm going to have
18 to do a little reading. I'll hope you'll excuse
19 that but I'll be happy to answer any questions
20 you might have at the end. Good morning Chairman
21 Sanders, Chairwoman Thomson and members of the
22 Task Force.
23 My name a Tim Kremer. I'm the
24 Executive Director of the New York State School
25 Boards Association. Thank you for allowing me
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2 this opportunity to provide information that I
3 hope will be useful in your mission of exploring
4 alternative models for leadership and community
5 representation on behalf the children attending
6 the New York City public schools. Since 1896 the
7 New York State School Boards Association has been
8 providing advocacy, information, and leadership
9 development services to it's nearly 55 hundred
10 school board members who've come from all walks
11 of life and who serve on nearly 700 school boards
12 state wide, including the New York City Board of
13 Education.
14 It's curious to note that the 32
15 community boards are eligible for membership in
16 the New York State School Board's Association,
17 but to date they have been precluded from joining
18 our association by the central -- precluded by
19 the central board. We have had community board
20 members involved in attending some of our over 70
21 workshops and seminars that we hold each year.
22 We do everything from large conferences down to
23 single board retreats. We have done some retreats
24 or what we call custom improvement programs for
25 some individual community boards.
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2 I personally have worked for a
3 school board association since 1979, and did have
4 the rather unique experience of assisting the
5 Chicago local school councils when those were set
6 up and a whole bunch of trainers from around the
7 country were convened. People who did work with
8 school boards around the country were convened to
9 assist those local school councils in learning
10 about how to be good Governors, how to be good
11 community representatives. It's something I
12 would like to share with you at this time.
13 I'm aware of the history of the
14 city's public school governance structure and
15 cognizant that the legislature has recently
16 chosen to eliminate. What has existed under the
17 banner the Board of Education or the Board of Ed.
18 The discussion before us of course must be more
19 than one of comparing the virtues of central
20 administration versus community based authority
21 as the superior governance structure. I would
22 submit however that wholesale changes in the
23 school district's governance structure have
24 little chance of making much of a difference
25 without the means for effectively engaging the
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2 vast New York City public school community. The
3 Mayor, the Chancellor and the education policy
4 panel have already assumed the task of examining
5 the relationship between the schools system and
6 district operations. They have redesigned the
7 board's governance structure and modified it's
8 roles and responsibilities in line with the
9 prevailing philosophy.
10 In my opinion, that was the easy
11 part. The next steps however will be much more
12 difficult. Step one, will require those in
13 charge to forge positive relationships with the
14 communities that they serve. Assuming that there
15 will be an ongoing contributing role for parents,
16 grand parents, taxpayers, business owners, other
17 stakeholders, teachers and administrators, within
18 the school system that relationship must be
19 properly defined at the outset. Public education
20 is the most heavily legislated, regulated and
21 litigated industry in our nation. The media is a
22 frequent critic and the public often distrusts
23 it's institutions, yet no other model has
24 successfully advanced academic achievement on
25 such a grand scale.
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2 The public school leaders whom I
3 represent have generally proven themselves
4 successful at providing the right balance between
5 accountability for performance and proper
6 representation. On behalf of both the community
7 and the school system. They seek ways for the
8 schools to relate to local residents. Addressing
9 educational issues head on as community not just
10 school concerns. They recognize that high
11 profile school issues often mask community
12 concerns about values and the quality of life.
13 Hence, sincere public engagement activities are a
14 way of life, for a successful school leaders
15 throughout New York. The Board of Ed's new
16 leadership, including the Mayor, the Chancellor
17 and the other 12 members of the Education Policy
18 Panel will require the community support to move
19 education forward.
20 They must therefor engage their
21 communities and create a culture that values
22 dialogue, collaboration and shared decision
23 making. They must embrace community leadership.
24 Help facilitate a realistic vision of the
25 communities educational expectation and provide a
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2 structure that encourages the implementation of
3 that vision. The city's educational leaders must
4 relentlessly communicate a clear, unified
5 message that student achievement is their top
6 priority. Together, with community
7 representatives, they must set clear standards
8 for student performance and school improvements.
9 Secure and allocate the necessary resources and
10 establish an assessment process that fairly and
11 regularly measures progress in a manner that is
12 meaningful to each community.
13 If properly trained, community
14 representatives will help to align resources,
15 staff, curriculum, programs and assessments, to
16 transform the community's vision of student's
17 success into realty. They will focus on results.
18 They will exercise responsibility. Successful
19 school community leaders will build collaborative
20 relationships with political, business and other
21 community advocates. They will remain accessible
22 and visible to all members of their community,
23 not merely small private constituent groups. The
24 success of community educational leadership lies
25 in it's willing to first education itself about
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2 the issues it faces and then facilitate community
3 participation in a meaningful, planning process.
4 I would even advocate for mandatory training of
5 community school leaders.
6 Those participating in new
7 governance structures must be eager to learn from
8 both professionals and community members alike.
9 They must examine how successful school leaders
10 operate. They must learn how to determine
11 community expectations, accurately assess student
12 performance data and maintain an open and
13 reliable system of accountability. One that
14 promotes wide-spread community review and comment
15 on student performance data. Community
16 educational leaders must also require the
17 essential ingredient of the combined parent
18 teacher oversite of student progress.
19 Step two, leading to the success of
20 the next generation of school community
21 governance is for the community at large to be
22 offered a chance to influence the education
23 budget process. In even the poorest school
24 districts elsewhere in the state, the residents
25 of the community have the ability to influence
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2 the spending priorities set forth in the local
3 school budget. The expression of local community
4 ideals into the budget process is the most direct
5 means of encouraging community support and
6 setting forth expectations for results. Absent
7 or direct vote in a dependent district, such as
8 New York City, another type of opportunity for
9 community input must be offered in the formation
10 of the budget. Expecting community support and
11 the academic system success it breeds by
12 dictating what will be spent and where,
13 irrespective of local community input is certain
14 failure.
15 In closing, an adequate replacement
16 for the community school boards must go beyond
17 merely determining what is necessary to provide
18 minimal constitutionality under the federal
19 voting rights act. Representation without real
20 responsibility is a sham, that will serve to
21 simply further delay improvements that for
22 thousands will amount to an education denied.
23 Responsibility without power to effectuate change
24 merely makes scapegoats of the well intentioned.
25 Mr. Chairman, Madam Chairwoman, Task
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2 Force members, the New York State School Board's
3 Association firmly believes that democracy and
4 public education are inexorable conjoined. We
5 represent the right of the local community to
6 select it's educational leaders and to take part
7 in determining the policies that will govern the
8 operation of their school system. This
9 philosophy is the prevailing rule, not the
10 exception and it is the key to student success in
11 public schools nationwide. We stand ready and
12 eager to assist you in not only your effort to
13 arrive at a suitable alternative to the current
14 local school governance model but to help
15 coordinate the leadership training for a new
16 community educational leaders, so that they will
17 know their job, will focus on that monumental
18 undertaking and will perform it with distinction.
19 Thank you.
20 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Assemblyman
21 Green, Virginia Kee, Robin Brown.
22 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: I saw a
23 similarity in recommendation between what you
24 articulated in your testimony and that which was
25 presented by Noreen Connell, Executive of Record
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2 of the Educational Priorities Panel. This is with
3 respect to the question of having the new body
4 being involved in reviewing improving school
5 performance. And you've articulated that
6 yourself and could you give some more examples of
7 how that might be achieved and particularly if
8 this is more of a parent centered body that we're
9 envisioning?
10 MR. KREMER: Well obviously the
11 people who might traditionally represent are
12 publicly elected and given that there is an
13 intent of doing away with the community school
14 boards, we're going to be look at people who have
15 somehow recruited, appointed, chosen in come some
16 way other than perhaps a public election,
17 although that would be my preference. But that
18 being said, I believe you're going to have to
19 have people who are brought together and there
20 have to be established some rules to the game, I
21 guess is the best way to say it, where people
22 have an understanding of what their roles and
23 responsibilities are.
24 They know what they are trying to
25 accomplish as a school system. They understand
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2 the rational as to why those things are important
3 and they're given the tool to determine to what
4 extent do we have the resource to accomplish what
5 we want to accomplish as a local school system.
6 They should also, In my opinion, they're most
7 important role would be that of accountability.
8 They should be there to help assess to what
9 extent the students are performing as we expect
10 them to and to hold the staff and the students
11 and themselves accountable for achieving student
12 results.
13 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: With that in
14 mind, has the school board association looked at
15 these issues particularly in the context of the
16 new federal law, Leave No Child Behind and what
17 challenges does that now establish you know?
18 MR. KREMER: We have -- you know we
19 cynically say there's nothing better for an
20 organization like mine than bad law. And the No
21 Child Left Behind Act has been a wealth of
22 opportunity. We have written books and done
23 workshops and seminars all around the state
24 because of the what we believe to be the very
25 strong arm of the federal government has taken
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2 with the no child left behind. It has dramatic
3 impact on local schools. You will have to do a
4 variety of things, including having highly
5 skilled, highly qualified teachers not
6 necessarily are they just certified or their
7 highly qualified, other things have to be in
8 place. There's enormous amount of teacher
9 notification requirements -- or I'm sorry parent
10 notification requirement that are involved, but
11 first and foremost it is probably on the tip of
12 your tongue as you think about this. Is this
13 the latest mandate from the feds that tell us
14 that regardless of whether or not that other
15 school down the road is full or that the class
16 size is burgeoning, if your school has been deem
17 to be that is in need of improvement or is
18 failing that have you to give parents the right
19 to transfer there students to another school
20 district, regardless of whether there is size or
21 class size is available to them there. That's a
22 huge undertaking.
23 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: What challenges
24 does that present to us in trying to formulate
25 some new local school body that would be involved
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2 in what you've said and what Noreen Connell has
3 said is looking at improving school performance
4 and reviewing accountability process?
5 MR. KREMER: I think it's going to
6 give you almost a standard or a charge to follow.
7 The good thing about the No Child Left Behind Act
8 is just that, it is a statement that we're not
9 going to leave any children behind. We're going
10 to find away to get all kids to get a high
11 standards public education. Whatever that takes.
12 And that will be an opportunity for you I think
13 accountability being the watch word for the local
14 school leadership teams or community boards or
15 whatever the next generation is. I think
16 accountability for student results will be
17 something that you'll want to focus on. The No
18 Child Left Behind Act, coupled with the state
19 standards are going to be the things that are
20 going to become your standard, your goal.
21 Before when we would talk about
22 improving public education we talked about as if
23 there was no end in sight, there was no runway.
24 Now we have a standard set. The question of two
25 what end has been answered. So you know what
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2 you're trying to lead up to. I think it's a clear
3 definition today for local group to know what
4 they're trying to achieve.
5 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: Thank you.
6 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Virginia Kee and
7 then Robin Brown.
8 MS. KEE: Mr. Kremer, in your
9 recommendation that the local community should be
10 able to influence the spending priorities of a
11 local school budget, now what would be the
12 mechanism to achieve that.
13 MR. KREMER: I don't know. What
14 we're dealing with, of course now, is a situation
15 where we do have a highly centralized
16 organization in place and we really have not seen
17 how that budget is going to be formulated and to
18 what extent there is going to be public
19 engagement. Even to my knowledge, public
20 hearings regarding the formation of that budget.
21 So I would say to you I don't have the answer. I
22 would say to you I think that the people who are
23 formulating that budget, the school board or the
24 education policy panel and the Mayor that they
25 work with, have got to reach out and get some buy
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2 in from community members throughout the city to
3 support that. Because I don't think this can
4 come on high -- down from on high and just say
5 this is the way it is and like it or lump it. I
6 don't think that will happen. So, I would look
7 for -- there needs to be a mechanism. I'm sorry,
8 I don't have the exact approach. If I was in
9 charge, I would want to have some sort of a Task
10 Force or some group of this nature who was
11 representative of the city and was presenting us
12 with information that was key to budget
13 discussions.
14 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Robin Brown then
15 Jack Friedman.
16 MS. BROWN: It seems as though the
17 one thing that everyone is in consensus about is
18 training and you talked about that earlier on.
19 You also mentioned it throughout your testimony.
20 Who do you think should be responsible for a
21 training the community engaging the community in
22 dialogue?
23 MR. KREMER: Well, I certainly don't
24 want to sound too self serving but this is
25 something we do for a living. I have 60 people
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2 on my staff, many of whom are trained
3 professional trainers who focus on school boards
4 and school community relations, leadership
5 development and all the things associated with
6 that. I heard much reference to parliamentary
7 procedure in Roberts Rule of Order. We do that
8 kind of training throughout the year all the
9 time. So we have all kinds of opportunities
10 there. We have just announced the opening of the
11 Center Urban School Programs. We've hired
12 somebody from New York City by the way, who is
13 going to head up and direct that center. So we
14 have in place, I think, a mechanism that would be
15 of assistance.
16 I would not propose that we're the
17 only game in town. There are just way too many
18 people sitting in this room who can provide some
19 great assistance. And when we would put together
20 any sort of training I would want to coordinate
21 it such a fashion that we called upon a variety
22 of the different sources to participate in that
23 training and to help. But I do think that there
24 are people who could organize either at the
25 school level or at district level, a variety of
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2 different ongoing training programs for people
3 who are interested.
4 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Friedman.
5 MR. FRIEDMAN: Good morning Mr.
6 Kremer. You represent an organization which
7 represents school boards around the state and
8 many with many powers, tax and jurisdictions and
9 I come from a perspective of school boards that
10 have basically become trivialized because they
11 no longer have any budgetary influence or
12 personnel making decisions. Is it possible for
13 us to create a body that is not going to be in
14 your words, a sham because of the lack of
15 responsibility, without those budgetary
16 decisions? Can you tie educational policy
17 without budgetary authority and without making
18 personnel decision or are we just wasting our
19 time?
20 MR. KREMER: Well I don't know if
21 you're wasting your time. I still think the
22 involvement of people who have a vested interest
23 in the outcomes of that school or that district
24 and having a way in which can you participate
25 effectively is important. Being able to
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2 designate resources towards something that you
3 believe is valued by the community and a program
4 or personnel or equipment or instructional
5 material, technology, the sorts of things that a
6 school board would typically make decisions
7 about. Being able to allocate resources to make
8 that happen is a fundamental role that does
9 indeed sustain the ability of a school board to
10 do it's work effectively. So not having that
11 being somewhat handcuffed if you will, is going
12 to make it more difficult. The role that you
13 undertake is going to be one that is not going to
14 be that that is the equivalent of the school word
15 board's state-wide without that taxing authority.
16 I would tell you though that with
17 the proper training and with the proper
18 mechanisms set up for the ability to participate
19 in important decision making discussions, and to
20 be called upon to be a part of the accountability
21 process. To be able to have a role in assessing
22 student performance data and being accountable
23 for that and reporting on that and being able to
24 make decisions as a response to that
25 accountability data. I think that would be an
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2 effective way, but without the financial
3 resources as it is, you are going to be hindered.
4 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Kremer there
5 have been a couple of questions asked of you by
6 the members of this panel that I think get to one
7 of the crocks, one of the knobs of the issues
8 that we will be dealing with over the next
9 several months. And that is the role and
10 responsibility of a local community school board,
11 specifically the budget. You mentioned in your
12 testimony, correctly so, that New York City is
13 one of five dependent school districts. A
14 dependent school district of course is a school
15 district that the citizens don't specifically
16 vote for the budget, the budget comes from the
17 city government.
18 So my question for you for my
19 edification and edification for the members of
20 the panel, is in the other four dependent school
21 districts, Yonkers, Syracuse, Rochester and
22 Buffalo that also do not directly vote to raise
23 taxes for education, the money comes from there
24 local governments. To your knowledge, what is
25 the role of the local school boards in those
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2 school districts in terms of the allocation of
3 resources? Bearing in mind, actually that the
4 next largest school district next to New York
5 City is Buffalo, with about 42,000 kids. We've
6 got some school districts in Queens that have
7 over 40,000 kids. So these are very large
8 subdivisions, but I'm curious to know what the
9 other four dependent school district -- how the
10 other 4 dependent school districts deal with the
11 allocation of resources or do they not?
12 MR. KREMER: Well I think they do,
13 to a great extent fact but -- first of all lets
14 make sure we understand. They don't have
15 community school boards. These other four
16 districts don't have the sorts of set up that New
17 York City does. They have one school board in
18 Buffalo, they have a nine member board, I
19 believe, two of whom are appointed by the Mayor
20 the rest of whom are elected primarily by an
21 award or district basis. In Rochester you'll
22 find that they are all elected but they kind of
23 run on a slate that is very aligned with the
24 Mayor. Has been in the past not so much so
25 today. In Syracuse they run kind of a party
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2 system and in Yonkers they're completely
3 appointed by the Mayor. So, everything is
4 different.You'll find that in those where they
5 are in close alignment with the Mayor, that there
6 is going to be a much more of a willingness to be
7 the dependent. There is not so much of an
8 adversarial or aggressive approach toward the
9 council from the school district. They much more
10 work as one. Sometimes to the school board's
11 detriment, sometimes not. Where there is a less
12 attachment, official attachment, less appointment
13 power there in a school district, you're going to
14 find that the school district, the school board I
15 should say is more independent. And is very much
16 an advocate for the school district budget and
17 garners a lot of support from groups within the
18 community, people who are associated with the
19 schools in advocating that and putting a lot
20 political pressure on the city council and the
21 Mayor to make that happen.
22 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: But do they --
23 maybe I wasn't clear enough. Given the fact that
24 the other four dependent school districts
25 actually in terms of the size of the student that
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2 populate the districts resemble some of our local
3 community school boards here in the city, they
4 have 15 to 40,000 kids in each of their district,
5 do those school boards, which will be similar
6 perhaps to what is created in New York City in
7 many communities. Do those school boards
8 Yonkers, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo, have
9 any direct power or responsibility in allocating
10 resources or is that done -- I'm not talking
11 about raising the money, because that come from
12 the city government, but do they have -- are they
13 given any powers in allocating the resources for
14 the various purposes?
15 MR. KREMER: Absolutely. They have
16 a school district budget that they have created,
17 that allocates the monies to the priorities that
18 they set fourth in there budget. They are
19 dependent upon the amount of money that is given
20 to them, a lump sum if you will, it's certainly
21 different than that, but something to that effect
22 and then they determine the allocation of that.
23 Now, I don't know all of the details that go in
24 before the allocation of the lump sum. There may
25 be a budget needs to be submitted and it will be
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2 funded accordingly, but to the best of my
3 knowledge, it actually is more or closer to the
4 lump sum, handed over and the school board then
5 makes decisions as to how that will be allocated
6 on an annual basis.
7 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Clayton:
8 MR. CLAYTON: Mr. Kremer, you said
9 your organization worked with the local school
10 councils out in Chicago?
11 MR. KREMER: I did personally not
12 the organization.
13 MR. CLAYTON: My question is did the
14 parents out there have any input in the
15 accountability process.
16 MR. KREMER: I haven't kept track
17 of how those played out. I was there right at the
18 front end when they went through what New York
19 City is going through right now, and this was
20 back in around 1990, '89, 90, where there was a
21 Chicago created a mayorally controlled system
22 then they created these local school councils
23 that at every school throughout the Chicago
24 school system. And those school council members
25 were selected through some sort of a community
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2 approach. I'm not sure if they were popularly
3 elected or how they were appointed to this local
4 school council. Then at that time they brought
5 together a whole bunch of people, such as myself,
6 to spend a week there in Chicago going through
7 training exercises with everything from running a
8 meeting to maintaining student performance --
9 accounting for student performance to reviewing
10 collective bargaining contracts, hiring the
11 principal, budgetary decisions and everything in
12 between. At the time that they were set up, they
13 were to have some budgetary oversight and some
14 personnel decision making powers. They selected
15 the principal for their school and they had some
16 budgetary capabilities. Probably a kin to the
17 first generation of the school community or the
18 community school boards here in New York City.
19 Today, I don't know what the fate
20 has been of those folks.
21 MR. CLAYTON: Thank you.
22 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Let me just ask
23 one more question. We all appreciate the fact
24 that you bring a wealth of knowledge to this
25 enterprise based on the hundreds of school
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2 districts that your organization represents.
3 Getting back to the model of the dependent
4 school districts since New York City is a
5 dependent school district, you had mention in
6 your testimony, correctly so, that the other four
7 dependent school districts have a variety of
8 means to select the members of those boards.
9 Some are elected, some are partially elected and
10 appointed, some are entirely appointed by the
11 Mayor of the city. Do you have any observation
12 or any recommendation for in a dependent school
13 district situation such as New York City, what
14 would be the best way to select members of what
15 would be the subdivision, the local community
16 school structure that we will develop. What would
17 be the best way, based on your experience with
18 the depend dependent school districts and others,
19 for people to gain entrance onto that new entity?
20 MR. KREMER: I think they need to be
21 people who are chosen from the community that
22 they will serve. I believe in that. I believe
23 that people who live in that community should
24 have some involvement in determining the policies
25 and priorities and values of the schools in their
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2 community. So I'd like to see some system that
3 they're selected. Official elections versus have
4 to meet certain criteria and then be appointed.
5 I'd have to really think that one through, but I
6 think they have to have some ownership in what's
7 going on.
8 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Is there any
9 evidence that you know of that would suggest that
10 an election as opposed to an appointment leads to
11 a better organized school board or better
12 academic results, any evidence?
13 MR. KREMER: No. I don't think so.
14 In fact, I think your -- I think it was New York
15 Partnership that had asked for the council of
16 great city schools to weigh in on the appointed
17 versus elected and mayorally appointed and such.
18 I think the report came back saying that the
19 governance structure in and of itself is not
20 going to make it or break it as far as student
21 results. That a more important ingredients are
22 strong consistent leadership, highly qualified
23 teachers and a supportive community. The
24 supportive community I think is key to what
25 you're talking about here and I really do believe
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2 that there needs to be away in which people at
3 least feel they've had a say in who their
4 representatives are. It may be that there
5 appointed but after going through some qualifying
6 test or it may be they're elected. I suspect an
7 appointment process would work just as well.
8 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Well we thank
9 you very much for traveling down from the
10 northern reaches of the state to offer us your
11 testimony and your views. Thank you.
12 MR. KREMER: It's been my pleasure
13 thank you.
14 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Next
15 Altagracia Cruz, President P.S. 60 Parent
16 Teachers Association.
17 MS. CRUZ: Good morning. Thank you
18 for letting me -- for giving me the time to take
19 in this hearing. I appreciate what you're doing.
20 You know the big favor you're doing to the Bronx.
21 Thank you. My name is Altagracia Cruz and I'm
22 the PTA President of P.S. 60. So my testimony
23 today is I completely agree we are able to the
24 school board and the purpose and the district. I
25 do not think the job they're doing is as good as
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2 could be. They don't go to visit the schools,
3 they don't resolve the problem for our and
4 parents. They don't do the job they're supposed
5 to be. The board have and I'm sorry to
6 Mr. Robert what he said before, he talking about
7 something good about him and some of the board
8 here, but the most percent of the board they have
9 corruption and they got favorites. And as a
10 parent and grandparent for nine children
11 attendance in the Bronx system and I think in the
12 changes the board is our the best. I have meet
13 with different parents from different schools in
14 the city all around in different districts and we
15 got conversation and we discuss couple of times
16 and we agree in the discussion we made it to make
17 a committee from the community parents that we
18 can deal with the problems and the education for
19 our children.
20 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Thank you.
21 Thank you for joining us from the Bronx
22 especially it's a long trip here today. Do you
23 serve on your schools school leadership team?
24 MS. CRUZ: Yes.
25 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: What are the
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2 challenges that you face as a member of the
3 school leadership team?
4 MS. CRUZ: I'm on the school
5 leadership team for three years and a half and I
6 try to do the best. I was chair before, I'm now
7 on our PTA representing the parents but we got
8 50/50, sometime we got you know they give you
9 right to select you know anything about education
10 or any decision in this group. But sometimes
11 they don't give you the right to you know what we
12 want or sometimes we don't know they're making
13 decision and they don't talk to the parents and
14 let the parents and let the parents know what
15 decision they're going to do.
16 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Thank you.
17 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Rivera.
18 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: You indicated
19 in your testimony that you've spoken to other
20 parents, am I correct?
21 MS. CRUZ: Yes. I go around the city
22 to different school districts, all the meetings
23 they have in different places I attended even I
24 go to Albany 2 or 3 times a year.
25 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: Are these
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2 Hispanic parents are they African American
3 parents, are they White parents, are they Asian
4 parents what's kind of parents do you speak to?
5 MS. CRUZ: The most parents I speak
6 to is Spanish and the Afro American because our
7 community I think 85 percent is Spanish and Afro
8 American.
9 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: And would you
10 say that most of the parents are in favor of
11 eliminating the current system?
12 MS. CRUZ: Yes, the board.
13 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: What do you
14 think is the biggest problem. Is it
15 ineffectiveness, you mentioned corruption and you
16 mentioned other things which do you think is the
17 biggest problem with school boards right now?
18 MS. CRUZ: The biggest problem is,
19 when I said corruption is because when -- they
20 don't attendance. We have a lot of the problems.
21 We think that they got the position is for when
22 the school got any kind of problem they're
23 supposed to be attending and they don't do that.
24 Hearing the problem and then try to fix it and
25 they don't do that.
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2 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: So you're
3 saying they don't appear they don't show up at
4 the meetings.
5 MS. CRUZ: No. They don't go --
6 they do a meeting in the district but they don't
7 go in the school, they don't go looking for the
8 problem the school got to try to fix it or try to
9 deal with the parent or the children and any kind
10 of problem they have.
11 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: And that's the
12 biggest problem that you find right now, lack of
13 participation, is that correct?
14 MS. CRUZ: Yes.
15 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: Thank you.
16 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Levin.
17 MR. LEVIN: Good morning and thank
18 you so much for testifying. I wonder if I can ask
19 whether it's helpful at all with respect to the
20 parents that you come in contact with to have
21 social workers who also engaged by the
22 educational community to work more closely with
23 parents and how they should relate to their
24 children and the school system, so that it's not
25 just from a teachers point of view, but to help
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2 them with their families?
3 MS. CRUZ: Yes. Well the social
4 workers or any assistant they got for the
5 children, sometimes they don't do the job they're
6 supposed to be, because I see and I hear a couple
7 times different time, different situation and
8 sometimes they work like an organization. If you
9 got problem with somebody, so everybody go
10 against you. That doesn't matter if they came to
11 fix the problem or help the children the way they
12 are supposed to, no they're thinking about this
13 person you know they don't deserve -- from their
14 mind they decide if that children or that person
15 or that problem and that family they can address
16 and do it. Or if that person has lied to them or
17 if that person agrees with them with anything
18 they do, if you don't agree with the wrong thing
19 or anything you got it so you not going to have
20 the service you're suppose to be the right way.
21 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Ms. Brown.
22 MS. BROWN: I just have a question.
23 In terms of your relationship with community
24 school boards, do you think maybe -- is it just
25 that they don't participate or they don't come or
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2 they don't know how to fix the problem or they
3 don't have the authority to fix the problem?
4 MS. CRUZ: No. I think it was two
5 meetings before when I meet with them I said the
6 same thing why they don't go to the school and
7 what they don't try to -- some of them say they
8 working and some of them say they don't have no
9 time. They put different excuse.
10 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Ms. Reddington.
11 MS. REDDINGTON: Can I ask a
12 question. Are you referring to your particular
13 school board in your district or are you
14 referring to other school districts?
15 MS. CRUZ: No, I'm talking about
16 mine, but I'm hitting about some more different
17 ones.
18 MS. REDDINGTON: Okay. Because as a
19 school board member, I'm looking at corruption
20 and I tell you that I come from a district that I
21 can assure there you there is no corruption. But
22 on the other issue, I do have a full time
23 position and there are mandates from central
24 board stating that we must meet with the parents
25 a minimum of four times a year. Then your school
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2 board is not doing their job, okay. Your
3 particular school board, but that doesn't mean
4 that --
5 MS. CRUZ: No, that's what I say.
6 MS. REDDINGTON: I just wanted to
7 clarify that, because there are mandates that
8 must be met and I know that there are many school
9 board members out there meeting these particular
10 mandates. I know I attend and I try to with all
11 the powers bestowed on me.
12 MS. CRUZ: No, that's what I said
13 when I said I'm sorry to Mr. Robert. But you
14 know, that you're not, he's not but a lot of
15 people do.
16 MS. REDDINGTON: Okay I just want to
17 clarify that because I don't want everyone to
18 think that this is --
19 MS. CRUZ: No, that's what I said
20 before. I'm sorry what he said, but it's true.
21 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Green,
22 Assemblyman Green.
23 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: If there were
24 recommendation to develop a new system that had
25 more parental representation on there, would that
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2 be good and also, what should -- how should we
3 empower parents in a process where there would be
4 more parental representation?
5 MS. CRUZ: Can you explain again?
6 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: If we had a
7 system, lets say we replace the current school
8 board as you recommended, we remove them, we
9 abolish them but then we replace them with a body
10 that had more parents on it.
11 MS. CRUZ: Parents and community
12 representation.
13 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: Okay. What
14 should the -- we do to ensure that parents are
15 strengthened, that they have the power to hold
16 the school system accountable for their children?
17 MS. CRUZ: So to look for parents,
18 strong parent, they want to do the right thing,
19 and got children in the school and they want to
20 do best for the school and the children. And
21 doing it by election like when they elect the
22 Mayor or the President.
23 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: Okay. Thank
24 you.
25 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Okay. We
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2 thank you very much for being here this morning
3 and traveling to Manhattan. Gracias.
4 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Larry Wood,
5 Organizer for Goddard Riverside Family Council.
6 MR. WOOD: Good afternoon at this
7 point. I'm almost getting ready for lunch so I
8 hope you guides are still focused. My name is
9 Larry wood I'm an Organizer at Goddard Riverside
10 Community Center, which I think is one of the
11 premier settlement houses in New York City. I'm
12 also a parent of two children at also a great
13 school on the upper west side, P.S. 9 and I'm
14 also one the 36 parents and community members
15 that got arrested last year in a none violent
16 civil disobedience, protesting the education
17 cuts. So I've bring a think little passion to
18 this work I hope.
19 I want to thank the members of the
20 Task Force for volunteering and committing your
21 time and energy to this process. And I say that
22 because found that there is a lot people very
23 cynical about this process. A lot of people
24 believe that the three men in a room is already
25 going to seed total control to the Mayor and
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2 that, I wouldn't say this is a rubber stamping
3 process, but a window dressing and that a
4 decision has largely been made. I really want to
5 echo what Councilman Jackson said and that I
6 really want to believe that this is a process.
7 We are here to listen and you will deliberate and
8 you will do your best to make recommendations to
9 those three men in the room, which would
10 ultimately make a decision on all of our
11 behalves.
12 I guess, I start with the premise
13 that both the city and state has not been
14 adequately funding our school system for quite
15 some time. And these hearings occurring during
16 the back drop of another hit another massive 200
17 million dollar plus cut to the our school system
18 and we have projections of more massive cuts yet
19 to come in this coming year. And we're going to
20 have quite pitch battle trying to maintain what
21 we have. I'm also very concerned about our
22 hypocritical Governor. During the campaign he
23 stepped away from the Appellate court over
24 turning the campaign for fiscal equity decision.
25 I didn't believe it and I now understand that the
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2 state and his lawyers are going to be opposing
3 demotions by the campaign for fiscal equity.
4 When they go to the court of the
5 Court of Appeals in early January the Governor
6 for technical and legal reasons are going to be
7 there to oppose trying to get that original
8 decision reinstated. Last year when I was up in
9 Albany with a group of parents and we had a
10 meeting with Senator Pattervan, he threw out to
11 us, he said what do you think about this
12 governance and that this Mayor control. And my
13 reply was, thought it was a red herring. I didn't
14 care who was in charge of the school system. I
15 felt if we didn't have adequate resources for
16 universal Pre K, for reducing class size, for
17 having well trained and supported teachers, for
18 real support for parent engagement, it was
19 meaningless it didn't matter who was in charge if
20 you didn't have those adequate resources.
21 So I didn't want to address the
22 issue. I believe I was wrong, I think clearly I
23 think my own council member Scott Stringer said,
24 it's going to happen the stars are aligning we're
25 going to have Mayoral control and that's what we
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2 have for better or worse we're in a new
3 experiment here. But at least we did get a
4 commitment of maintenance of efforts out of the
5 deal. People -- I don't know how that
6 maintenance of effort became no more cuts to the
7 education system to, well we're just going to cut
8 the central board, to what well we have to take a
9 wack out of the districts but it won't affect the
10 schools but now it's, we won't affect the
11 classrooms. We've gone from no more to well we
12 hope it's not going to affect the classrooms. I
13 don't know what -- that's not maintenance of
14 effort.
15 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Wood, can
16 I just interrupt you here, I certainly don't make
17 it my practice to interrupt people when they're
18 testifying. But just so we don't lose this point
19 because I think your point is important. The
20 maintenance of effort provision of the law is
21 real, it takes effect on July 1. So whatever the
22 school system spends this year, they will not be
23 able to cut below that in the school year that
24 begins July 1. When we past the budget, when the
25 State Legislature past the budget and the state
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2 provided the City of New York an additional 200
3 million dollar from the state, it was with an
4 agreement between the speaker of the assembly and
5 the Mayor that during this school year, whatever
6 cuts might be necessary, those cuts would not
7 come out of the instruction or classroom.
8 So you're right that during the
9 current school year we are still experiencing
10 something cuts. Hopefully those cuts are not
11 coming from the classrooms. As of July 1 2003,
12 the maintenance of effort law goes into effect
13 and that will forbid this Mayor or any successor
14 Mayor from cutting the school district from what
15 is spent the year before. But your point was
16 very important.
17 MR. WOOD: I understand there were
18 some big loop holes left in there. The incentive
19 is clearly is to cut the budget this year and
20 make a minimal ceiling as it were or minimal
21 floor. But I understand in times of fiscal
22 crisis they're still going to be able it cut so
23 it's not an iron clad guarantee that there's
24 going to be a maintenance of effort on the city's
25 part. But anyway, I still really want to believe
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2 that this administration is fully committed to
3 creating a world class education system, I mean
4 clearly the jury is still out on the Mayor and
5 his Chancellor but I really believe I've been
6 seeing some very scary trends. I'm really
7 increasingly concerned around the secrecy and the
8 tight control over information that has emerged.
9 I want an open honest debate on
10 policy issues and budget issues. I want
11 transparent budgets and discussions around
12 curriculum. It seems that things are now on a
13 need to know basis. We have a an edu -- except
14 for Board of Ed we have an education panel. The
15 first orders they were given was, they had to
16 publicly shut up. They can't speak. I'd like to
17 know, these people are going to make decisions
18 about my children education, I want to know what
19 they're thinking and where they're coming from
20 and we should have an open, honest debate.
21 Right now the Chancellor is on his
22 wonderful listening tour. It's been incredible
23 outreach to get people to invest and participate
24 in that process but I've asked a basic question,
25 who are these working groups are winnowing down
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2 and culling all this information that's
3 eventually going to go to the Chancellor. You
4 can't get that information. Whose on those
5 working groups aren't going to sift through that
6 all that information. Who are the parents on
7 those groups. I understand parents were
8 selected. Parents representative from around the
9 city don't know who is actually representing
10 them.
11 So this is to say with this
12 tightening of control and information, I really
13 believe that the community, both parents and
14 citizen and all stake holders need a real check
15 and balance on such highly centralized control.
16 I mean is it what the Mayor and the Chancellor
17 wants. Well, sometimes the mayor might want not
18 want to have to deal with the city council or
19 President might not want to deal with congress,
20 which is the reason why we have a checks and
21 balance in place and we need the same I believe
22 for our educational system.
23 I work at Goddard Riverside and over
24 the last couple and organization called Advocates
25 for Public Representation and Public Education
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2 has been working and they're going to be
3 testifying later on and giving you a set of
4 principals, which include maintaining some sort
5 of the public elections for this district level
6 entity. I hope that that is seriously
7 considered. I believe it needs to be a real
8 independent entity that's not employed or chosen
9 by the system itself. And considering the
10 paramount importance of these deliberation and
11 stuff, I believe the State Legislature has really
12 done an abysmal job of publicizing your very work
13 and these proceedings.
14 And I contrasted the listening tour
15 the Chancellor is currently doing. I've gotten
16 20 or 30 more e-mails, my children back packed
17 home invitations to attend the different
18 gatherings in the different boroughs, the stuff
19 has been translated and I don't know if it's by
20 design or just by default, clearly not a fraction
21 of the amount of outreach has been done by this
22 Task Force. In order to even sign up I had to
23 fax my request back up to Albany. That's
24 ridiculous. To translate in Spanish, for people
25 who need it, information about where these
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2 hearings will be held. I'm doing my best to get
3 it out by e-mail so people know that this is
4 occurring. When I asked the State Legislator
5 can't you send this to me as an electronic
6 document, I have this huge e-mail list of parents
7 and advocates from around the city, I was told it
8 wasn't available. That's ridiculous, I can't
9 find that acceptable. We have to do a better job
10 of letting parents and all the stakeholders in
11 the city know what you're deliberating and we
12 need a full debate here.
13 I also understand that 3 weeks ago
14 the Board of Elections wrote a letter to Sheldon
15 Silver, to Speaker Silver and Majority Leader
16 Bruno asking what should they do about
17 preparations for these school board elections.
18 Technically they're still mandated to start
19 making preparations. I don't know what they were
20 told, but if we are going to keep some sort of
21 the district level entity and some number of it's
22 members are going to be publicly elected, there's
23 a time table which we're now running up against.
24 There's petitioning, there's a whole process
25 which they have to go through. What has been told
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2 to the board of elections, have you even inquired
3 of the Board of Elections. If we come up with an
4 entity that requires elections, what's their time
5 table. When do they have to get to work. That's
6 a basic question. This Task Force needs to know
7 and we are parents trying to get that information
8 from the Board of Elections ourselves.
9 Well, I guess in conclusion I really
10 want to say I hope you do listen. That you do
11 maintain some sort of the checks and balance on
12 this Mayor, and a meaningful role will still be
13 maintained for both the public and parents to be
14 represented in school governance in a meaningful
15 way and into resources for that entity as well.
16 And I would ask that the please make public your
17 transcripts, your interim report then your final
18 reports make sure it's available to the public.
19 Get it up on the Internet so that people have
20 access to this information and if you'd like a
21 Spanish translation about a notice of these
22 hearings I'd be happy to provide it to you. Thank
23 you.
24 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Thank you
25 Mr. Wood.
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2 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Thank you for
3 your comments and thank you for your honesty. I
4 think we'll have a discussion certainly about the
5 outreach efforts and the translation of the
6 meeting notices. We still have four meeting
7 ahead of us so I think we can get back on course.
8 You talked about checks and balances. What do
9 you think is necessary, what are the appropriate
10 checks and balances that need to take place at
11 the local level to ensure improved schools?
12 MR. WOOD: Well, people do need
13 access to information in a timely manner. I think
14 it's vital that the transparency around budgets
15 is vital. I know in district 3 there were
16 issues that came up around the amount of monies
17 being allocated to different schools in the
18 district, it created a debate and then the
19 district went back and changed it a little bit.
20 It's very vital. Then the training and support
21 for parents who are going to be participating on
22 school leadership team, the district leadership
23 teams, it is so vital it's not a level playing
24 field. Principals and teachers they go through
25 months and years of training to get where they
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2 are. Parents at best, get a couple weeks couple
3 hours of training and if somebody really gets up
4 to speed, eventually they're going to graduate
5 out of this system and then you have new sets of
6 parents that are going to have to be trained.
7 In addition to parents I think
8 there's a real role for community based
9 organizations and other members of the public to
10 be involved at the district level governance.
11 There are a lot of organizations around this city
12 that do a lot of work with parents. I think of
13 Acorn and north west Bronx community clergy
14 coalition, my own agency Goddard Riverside, we've
15 been holding meetings and getting information out
16 to parents. There's a role we can play in
17 helping level the playing field in making sure
18 parents have access to this information and that
19 people see these district level entities as
20 independent of the system. It's very very
21 important.
22 MS. BROWN: Thank you.
23 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Wood we thank
24 you very much for your comments and your candid
25 observations and we hope at the end of this
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2 process, this is the beginning, you will feel and
3 other's will feel that it was open, fair and
4 entirely consumer friendly. That's our goal,
5 thank you very much.
6 MR. WOOD: If not you will hear from
7 us again. Thank you.
8 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Theresa
9 Arboledo, member of community school board 3.
10 Hope I pronounced your name correctly.
11 MS. ARBOLEDA: Good morning. Before
12 I was a community school board member, my two
13 children went through New York City Public
14 Schools from K through 12 and I was a PTA
15 president and then got on the school board. And
16 I was trained and I hoped that I use that
17 training later to good effect.
18 In the Spring of 2002, the period
19 where the issue of Mayoral control of New York
20 City public schools was discussed in New York
21 State Legislature. There was very little
22 information about school district governance
23 disseminated to the public and almost no public
24 discussion. Suddenly laws were passed by the
25 legislature and signed by the Governor giving the
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2 Mayor almost everything he wanted, including the
3 power to appoint the Chancellor and eliminating
4 school boards effective June 30, 2003. There was
5 no opportunity for the public to become involved
6 in the process and little thought was given to
7 the repercussions of eliminating school boards.
8 We need checks and balances. While
9 the Mayor's power to appoint the Chancellor may
10 be a good thing, the lack of checks and balances
11 on the decision making process is definitely not
12 a good thing. Stakeholders include parents, they
13 include teachers administrators, managers and
14 students, as well as the general public. What
15 will happen when parents and other stakeholders
16 have questions about decisions involving
17 important issues such as class size, budget cuts,
18 safety, security, there must a public venue for
19 public participation. Without a public venue
20 within a community school district, the public
21 will lose the opportunity to participate in open
22 discussions, air opinions and grievances and
23 question decisions about important educational
24 issues. It is essential that local school
25 districts be maintained with publicly elected
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2 bodies composed of public stakeholders to assure
3 that decisions that affect students and the
4 entire public are appropriately checked.
5 If decisions are made in secret
6 with no public discussion, and there is no
7 publicly elected body to air their concerns to,
8 will they all come knocking on the Chancellor's
9 door so they can participate? There are voting
10 rights and there are opportunities. It is
11 essential that we maintain the right to vote for
12 an elected body that represents and includes all
13 stakeholders in public education. As is the case
14 throughout most New York State. A publicly
15 elected body representing all public school
16 district stakeholders must have authority to set
17 policy and the responsibility to keep the public
18 informed, as well as provide the opportunity for
19 queries about issues and decisions that effect
20 the entire community not just individual schools.
21 Elections for community school board
22 members elicit a low turn out because of the lack
23 of public information and the lack of knowledge
24 that these elections are open to everyone, not
25 just those whose children attend public schools.
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2 Election reform is essential to allow for
3 extensive public participation. Also, it is
4 imperative that the public be allowed to see Task
5 Force preliminary and final recommendations and
6 given adequate time to comment on them before
7 they go to the Governor and Legislature.
8 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Thank you very
9 much.
10 MS. ARBOLEDA: No questions?
11 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: We thank you very
12 much for your testimony and for your comments.
13 Thank you.
14 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Steven
15 Greenberg, President of Community School Board
16 27.
17 MR. GREENBERG: Good afternoon
18 everybody. I want to thank you for the
19 opportunity to come and speak in front of this
20 group. I will say that I was a little bit
21 skeptical before coming here but after listening
22 to the testimony for the last, about three hours,
23 I believe that you people are going to come up
24 with the correct decision. My name a Steve
25 Greenberg I'm President of Community School
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2 District 27, representing 38 schools 34,000
3 students in the communities of Richmond Hill,
4 Woodhaven, Ozone Park, South Ozone Park, Howard
5 Beach, Broad Channel and the entire Rockaway
6 Peninsula. I believe that that probably makes us
7 one of the largest school district in the
8 country. I had written testimony but as I sat
9 here and listened there is lots of things that
10 just came into my mind. Issues about budgets and
11 things like that. But I think that since the
12 last governance law was passed what my board has
13 done and we've become very good at, is being
14 advocates for the parents and for the students of
15 district 27.
16 I'll give you a few examples. I
17 don't know how familiar most you are with the
18 Rockaways, but there is a building boom going on
19 -- in the -- on the Rockaway Peninsula. That
20 means that there is going to be a complete lack
21 of school seats for our community. But nobody
22 knew how many new homes were being built. There
23 wasn't any record in the borough of Queens of how
24 many buildings were being built. So myself and
25 two other school board members did the only thing
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2 that anu body has done in the Rockaway's, the
3 borough of Queens. We got in our car and we went
4 block to block and counted the numbers of homes
5 that were being built so we could accurately
6 rezone the Rockaway Peninsula to show where these
7 buildings were being built.
8 We have been advocates for new
9 schools. We've been advocates for parents
10 rights. Discussion became about budget before.
11 Several years ago when the budget powers were
12 taken away from our local community school board
13 the superintendent had eliminated after school
14 programs. Not after school program, summer day
15 camps that were an integral part of our district
16 policy. We appealed to him and he changed back
17 and he reinstated these things, just little
18 things. Our biggest concern concerning this
19 change of governance is a fear that the people
20 won't have a voice in what goes on. You know,
21 Assemblyman Sanders you came out to a forum out
22 at P.S. 43 a couple years back. That's about as
23 far away from the Tweed Court House as can you be
24 and although it was great that you came out,
25 based on a lot things people have said, a lot of
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2 things that I see going on here now, with the
3 Mayor in control is that these people our people
4 won't have access. And I think it's very
5 important that the people do and continue to have
6 voice in what goes on in their children's
7 education.
8 I do have a couple ideas. First
9 all, I think that whatever group takes over --
10 first of all community school board 27 has been
11 very clear. We've had several public forums,
12 we've spoken to our parents and we think school
13 should remain as they are. I'll state that. One
14 integral part of what ever does take us over, if
15 in fact that happens, is that this group must be
16 able to choose a superintendent whose
17 responsibility is to the community. Our current
18 superintendent was chosen several years ago and
19 he made a promise to us that he was going to go
20 out into the community, meet with every single
21 community group he was asked to meet with and go
22 out there and spread the word. He has done that
23 but recently he's got spend a couple of days aat
24 the Tweed Court House. Recently it's become very
25 very apparent to members of our board and to the
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2 people in the community that his allegiance is
3 not to the community, it's to the Mayor. We think
4 it should be to the community.
5 We must preserve a capable staff,
6 that is virtually impossible for any group to
7 work without some kind of capable staff behind
8 them, you know, doing the paperwork. I mean, I'm
9 here today and I'm not in the borough of Queens
10 because I work right across the street. I work
11 for Solomon Smith Barney and I know that when I
12 go back I'm going to have a message from my exec
13 about something that's going on in the district
14 and she's going to want to talk to me about that,
15 I promise you I'm going to have that message. I
16 think that it's very important, that allows those
17 of us who work for a living to allow us to go on
18 and to do our jobs properly. So whatever comes
19 should have a capable staff. I've heard people
20 ask who pays for it, well it should come right
21 out of the budget of the Board of Education or
22 whatever it's called today.
23 I think whats very interesting is
24 that -- I've always said here the people have the
25 right to vote and this right is being taken away
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2 from the people of New York City, not the people
3 of Nassau County, Suffolk County or, as I'm fond
4 of saying, the people of Chappaqua. Take the
5 votes away from these people and the people are
6 going to yell and scream. I think the people of
7 New York should have the right to vote for their
8 local school boards. I think it should be an
9 elected group. And also if that cannot be done,
10 I think what you can do is set up a process where
11 by each of the schools in any individual district
12 could come up with representatives who would
13 interview, in my case you'd have 38 different
14 representatives coming into interview people who
15 would like to serve on whatever this board or
16 whatever this group is called and let the parents
17 of the district decide who it is who represents
18 them. If it didn't cannot be done by a regular
19 vote, just have representative of each school
20 come in and interview perspective candidates and
21 let that group chose whoever it is, whatever
22 their representatives are.
23 I think that these representatives
24 must have real responsibilities, for educational
25 policy, approval of the district comprehensive
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2 education plan, reviewing of the district budget
3 and evaluation of the superintendent in
4 consultation with the parents and the public.
5 This group must be accountable to the parents and
6 public by having local access and opportunities
7 for parents to get involved in what goes on in
8 public settings. As it was mentioned before, our
9 school board, all school boards are required to
10 have quarterly meetings throughout the district.
11 My particular board, we have a -- we meet at our
12 district office once a month and once a month we
13 travel around to different parts of our district
14 having a meeting in different schools. We have
15 committee meetings. We have all kinds of parent
16 involvement, issues is the wrong word but things
17 for parents. All kind of parent involvement
18 things around the district that bring people out.
19 I think that it's very important
20 that that continue in whatever groups takeover.
21 People want to have a stake in what goes on in
22 their children's education. To me, you know, I
23 walk into my local grocery store and people are
24 stopping me and asking me questions about what
25 goes on in the schools. And I'm not a -- I don't
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2 hide I'm out in the community, people are talking
3 to me about this stuff all the time. If somebody
4 comes to me with a question I can at least get
5 them an answer, I can direct them to the right
6 place. It scares me that that -- that parents
7 will lose the potential to be able to go to
8 somebody and to get their questions answered. It
9 scares me that somebody from Far Rockaway might
10 have to come to the Tweed Courthouse to get an
11 answer to the a question. That's unacceptable, it
12 really can't happen. There's got to be local
13 participation.
14 In closing, I just like to point
15 out, I'm not -- I was a person who felt that the
16 Mayor should take control. I think from a
17 business standpoint I think that the Mayor has
18 the background to put the school system in better
19 financial shape. School construction is one
20 place where I think he can work some wonders.
21 But as this thing has evolved it bothers me that
22 it doesn't seem to be a lot of parental input. I
23 was not there and I believe that a member of our
24 community is going to come speak in Queens, but
25 at one of the last meetings of the new Department
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2 of Education, a woman had signed up for speaking
3 time and got up to speak at and at precisely 8:00
4 the Chancellor closed the meeting. As this woman
5 got up to speak she wasn't heard. That's
6 unacceptable.
7 And I'd also like to say that unless
8 there's local representation, we now have a
9 Mayor, the Mayor's term is up and then the Mayor
10 is going to get reelected. Now when
11 Assemblywoman Phefer becomes the next Mayor,
12 she's going to turn around and she's going to
13 chose her new group to run this and they'll be
14 perhaps no continuity. If her ideas are
15 completely different then there's no continuity.
16 I really think that what district 27 has done and
17 what I'm sure all 32 districts around the City of
18 New York, we have our own policies we have our
19 own histories. There's a lost reasons why things
20 are done in those district. And it scares to
21 think that on June 30 they're going to close my
22 office door. Take all the files and throw them
23 out and have none of that history there to show
24 what what's going on. So I do appeal to all of
25 you to come up with the correct decision of
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2 making sure that there is viable and important
3 local participation in this school system. Thank
4 you.
5 MS. MULLEN: Good afternoon. I come
6 from Howard Beach so I'm in your neck of the
7 woods. Just a couple of questions. Your school
8 district seems to be what I would term based upon
9 your representations as very high functioning. So
10 too some of them are and some of the are not,
11 that's what we are all here to figure out what
12 should take their place. Do you credit the
13 success of your school district with training,
14 with selection, with elections, upon what do you
15 base your success that you might be a role model
16 for whatever this committee ultimately chooses to
17 put in it's place?
18 MR. GREENBERG: I was quoted in
19 today's Newsday as saying when I first became a
20 school board member I didn't even know that we
21 had public meetings and that is true. And it
22 kind of scared me when I said, oh boy I got to
23 get up in front of the public and say what I want
24 to think. And what's interesting was there was a
25 gentleman in my district who said to me when this
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2 whole thing started, he's no longer active but he
3 said Steve your power is not in everything you do
4 it is in the public. And I found that to be the
5 most true thing that has ever gone on, you know,
6 this is what it is. And after a while people
7 begin to believe because you tell them the truth
8 all the time and that gives you credibility.
9 I think that my board we've gone
10 through some interesting times since 1991. But I
11 think that what we -- even in the worst of the
12 times we remained focus in keeping ourselves as a
13 public group. To be out there and let people
14 know exactly what we're doing and trying to keep
15 that going. Was it training? I think it's
16 learning more than training. When I first became
17 a board member the district superintendent said
18 that you don't have -- the board was a new board
19 and it didn't have a history, he said what you
20 need is a historian on this board. I think I
21 kind of eluded to that when I talked about what
22 goes on. But I think that basically what we tried
23 to do was remained focus and some of the school
24 board training we got was okay, some of it was a
25 waste of time.
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2 It's very difficult to take a group
3 of people and train them to do a job that --
4 unless that job is completely defined as what it
5 is supposed to do. So I think basically what
6 we've done is we have a group of nine people who
7 work closely together and remain focus on our
8 job.
9 MS. MULLEN: Do you think that
10 increased training in none functioning school
11 boards would make a difference or is it something
12 to do with the selection process?
13 MR. GREENBERG: I think perhaps I
14 don't think it has to do with the election
15 process, but I do think that -- I didn't know
16 that this gentleman from the state school boards,
17 that they had people who went trained school
18 boards and stuff like that, I think what you need
19 to do is have people who are involved in the
20 day-to-day workings of school boards to go out
21 and speak to whatever these groups are and
22 perhaps help them in defining what it is.
23 MS. MULLEN: Thank you.
24 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Assemblywoman
25 Phefer.
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2 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFER: Thank you and
3 I'm not going to be mayor so you don't have to
4 worry about that. We're very lucky, I'm very
5 lucky you are the President of my school board
6 and you've been very active. I take your advice
7 and think that made it very difficult for myself
8 and both also Terry when we discussed the
9 decision of possibly eliminating the school
10 boards because I think citywide, if all the
11 boards have the -- not necessarily the commitment
12 but the successes that you did, it would be a
13 different story. And one of the successes I would
14 like you to answer for the record is, that
15 district 27 is very large, very different,
16 diverse but diverse not only racially but also
17 economically. How did you involve the parents, I
18 mean you hear from our discussions that there's
19 not parent participation in many communities
20 throughout the city, yet the Parents Association
21 meetings that you hold through the school board
22 have been very active. How would you suggest to
23 bring more parents in on the lowest level?
24 MR. GREENBERG: Well I think that we
25 what we do is that we have gotten involved with
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2 community based organizations, we make sure these
3 organizations know when our meeting are and where
4 they are. We had a zoning meeting at P.S. 105
5 the other night that was attended by several
6 hundred people. And whether or not they --
7 whether or not I or my board or all those people
8 agree or disagree, here was a place where these
9 people had a chance to come out and voice their
10 concerns and talk about the issues. It's very
11 important. That's one thing.
12 The other thing that we have is that
13 we do have on our board a -- the people have
14 elected people that represent the different
15 areas. So we have representative from Far
16 Rockaway, we have representative from Howard
17 Beach, we have representative from Woodhaven,
18 these people are -- and we understand that though
19 all of us are board members fro the entire
20 district. That when something comes of
21 importance happens in Howard Beach, I know that
22 I'm going to depend on my Howard Beach people to
23 talk to -- you know to say what's important to
24 those people. So I we've done a good job in
25 terms of knowing what's important to the
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2 different areas of the community.
3 We have worked very hard to create
4 community schools, to do away with as much
5 bussing as we possibly could in the district. We
6 had kids going from one end to the other. We
7 were bussing 5,000 kids every single day and we
8 were very lucky with the help of Terry Thomson,
9 we had a new middle school. And what we were
10 able to do with that new middle school was capped
11 our elementary schools on the main land, now I'm
12 getting a very complicated district 27, but we
13 capped the middle schools at fifth grade, we were
14 able to reduce the over crowding in those
15 schools, we were able to send kids -- set up a
16 pattern where by each of the elementary schools
17 feeds directly into a middle school.
18 Now that my may not sound like to
19 something that -- to some districts maybe that
20 something that was very national, it wasn't
21 natural to district 27, we had to create and make
22 that. That's something I'm very proud of. But
23 that was kind of listening to the people and
24 trying to come up with good plan.
25 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFER: The leadership
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2 teams in each school, do you believe that they
3 are functioning at the level that they should or
4 that we the legislation --
5 MR. GREENBERG: I don't think that
6 the leadership teams are functioning at the level
7 they should be. I think part of the problem with
8 the leadership teams is what they do is basically
9 done behind closed doors and that it's not an
10 open process. Some of the parents don't know
11 whether they can attend the meetings or can't
12 attend the meetings as observers and things like
13 that. I don't know why, but it's not something
14 that's comes to the fore front in our district
15 and that's something that's been very -- if it's
16 been effective, I don't know that it's been
17 effective.
18 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFER: Good. Just
19 the last thing because you do have such a good
20 resource. You talk about the parents in the
21 different schools electing people or interviewing
22 people, do you see that that group should be all
23 parents, do you think there should be a
24 legislative mix the way we have on the leadership
25 team of 50 percent parents, how do you view
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2 that?
3 MR. GREENBERG: I think that -- what
4 I said was, that a group of parents should be
5 there to choose, whatever that forum is, whoever
6 those people might be. You know that I wasn't
7 going to run for election. I stayed on one extra
8 year. Part of the reason I wasn't going to run
9 for election is that my children are -- I have
10 one who has graduated college, two who are in
11 college and it was time to pass the torch on to
12 somebody who had a stake in the public schools.
13 Because I don't have children in the schools any
14 longer. I don't know, I don't remember what it's
15 like to sit down with my kids, I listen to
16 friends talk, and spend two hours doing homework
17 or -- the worse thing was the science project on
18 Sunday afternoon.
19 But, I do believe that if that --
20 you know, let's use no taxation without
21 representation. People who live in an area who
22 are paying taxes towards those public schools, I
23 believe, should have a right to represent. And I
24 figured if you have a group of parents who were
25 choosing who those representatives are, they'll
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2 choose the right thing. They'll choose the right
3 people, they'll know whether somebody is genuine
4 or whether somebody is a phony.
5 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFER: I thank you
6 so much Steve.
7 MS. MULLEN: One last question. Do
8 you think -- you've spoken a lot about having
9 everything be open and in the public and so
10 forth, do you think that that would have a bigger
11 issue for non-functioning boards, in other words,
12 was the problem that everything was kind of
13 secretive and so they could do what they want
14 versus a training issue? I'm just trying to
15 understand where it went wrong.
16 MR. GREENBERG: I don't know why
17 some boards were not functional. We're all go by
18 the same rules and regulations and things like
19 that it would seem to me that if the board --
20 well, I don't know, that's a tough question to
21 answer. But I think that a part of it would be
22 dedication to the job. You know part of it would
23 be leadership on the board and, you know, just
24 making sure that you're doing what you were
25 elected to do. I mean we take our job very
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2 seriously. You may disagree with me, and that's
3 okay, but you know I'm going to defend -- we're
4 out there. I don't know if that answered your
5 question.
6 MS. MULLEN: Kind of.
7 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFER: Just in
8 clarification because I think it was an important
9 question. The leadership team, not the school
10 board, if that was more opened -- you know I'm
11 confused now, maybe my colleagues can help me.
12 Was that mandated to be an open meeting, the
13 leaderhip team, so that by it being a little bit
14 secretive it was in violation of what was
15 projected but we didn't know, which is a worse --
16 MR. GREENBERG: Yes, I think that
17 the whole school leadership team thing came down
18 and I don't think that everybody was -- I know we
19 have a person in the district whose responsible
20 for the school leadership teams, at least we did
21 probably is no longer on the payroll, but it's
22 just -- it was never something that really came
23 to the fore front in terms of interaction with
24 the school board. And there were problems in
25 forming the teams in certain schools. And
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2 certain schools the parents felt that they didn't
3 have the right. Certainly certain schools the
4 Parent Association felt they had no input with
5 the school leadership team and you know, they
6 never had a lot of contact together.
7 I think that the school leadership
8 teams are effective and can be effective. And
9 what they can be effective with is determining,
10 you know, whatever can go on in that building to
11 better the building, whether it's a local budget,
12 what programs, you know, little things working
13 along with the principal and the staff to come
14 with some ideas.
15 I wouldn't through throw it out to
16 wash but I would prefer, I think when you get
17 down to the actual school level, you are -- a lot
18 of what goes on in one school is dependant on
19 what goes on in the school next to it and next to
20 that and to the middle school in the area. And I
21 think if you put everything down to the school
22 leadership team level you just wouldn't have the
23 necessary intersection. And I do think, by the
24 way, that high school should be included in the
25 school districts.
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2 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Steve, I have
3 an observation and then a question for you that
4 may require some more thought on your part. The
5 observation certainly is, and maybe I'll answer
6 one of the questions. A good part of why a school
7 board 27 is so successful is it's leadership and
8 you. And I was one who encouraged you a few
9 years back to run again, because of the terrific
10 leadership you provide indeed the district and it
11 a school board that really functions together and
12 my observation is, that it's the school board and
13 it's leadership, the parent, their leadership,
14 the superintendent, the teachers and the
15 principals and the CBO's all plugging together.
16 Everybody's on the same page and everybody's
17 advocating for the kids. And I think that's why
18 it works.
19 If you could just -- if we wipe the
20 slate clean and there -- you know and we're going
21 to build a structure at the district level, what
22 would the functions be, you've had some great
23 experience, pre-governance changes, post
24 governance changes with school boards. You have
25 some knowledge of school leadership teams. What
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2 are the specific roles that this body should be
3 responsible for?
4 MR. GREENBERG: I think -- first of
5 all, as I said in the beginning I think that this
6 group should be an advocate for parents and for
7 kids. I think that it's -- because of it's
8 something we've been very much involved in
9 recently, I think it's very important when it
10 comes to zoning, that local people be involved
11 and be at the fore front of any zoning issue that
12 go on in a school district. I can't imagine -- a
13 couple of years ago when we had somebody from
14 school construction came down to Rockaway and
15 drove over the bridge and said wow I've never
16 been to Rockaway before, that's okay, but this
17 guy should not be making decisions looking at a
18 map wherever and saying okay we can cut it here
19 ask cut it here. There are things that -- I
20 think that's very important.
21 The budget is interesting because I
22 do think that a when you're creating a policy,
23 can you create that policy through budget. When
24 we were responsible for budget, we held budget
25 meetings, where -- that were very well attended,
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2 where the principals of the schools would come
3 down, and the parents and people would fight for
4 what it is that they thought was important.
5 Whether we should have an Assistant Principal for
6 every school above -- if you have two Assistant
7 Principals above 700 students or -- you know
8 these are the kinds of things that we got into,
9 all these debates. Then it also came down to
10 things about after school programs and stuff like
11 that. Parents came and people came from the
12 community and said these were things that were
13 necessary and you're able to do that. Now of
14 course, you're not going to put in an after
15 school program when there's no money to see what
16 goes on in classroom, but nonetheless these are
17 things I'm talking about.
18 But we were -- something that we
19 have done just recently even without budget
20 control but it's something that our board was
21 very supportive of and urged the superintendent,
22 or I should say we did it in conjunction with the
23 superintendent. But our little school 198 in the
24 Rockaway's, it's been a failing school for many
25 many years. What we did, we used the model that
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2 was used in Chancellor's district in this school
3 and we limited class size to, my number might be
4 wrong, but it might be 20 or 22 in every single
5 class. We got some extra teacher training in the
6 building and I can't tell that you that overnight
7 has made the students of middle school 198
8 geniuses, it has not but the scores did improve.
9 But most important is that there was no staff
10 turnover in that building from one year to the
11 next. And Audrey knows, that's a volatile area
12 it's an area where there's been tremendous
13 tremendous lack of continuity.
14 So if you can control the budget,
15 you can control what goes on to individual
16 schools. Individual schools have individual
17 needs and I think it's wrong to go with a cookie
18 cutter and say we're going to give $7,422 to
19 student, when there it is there might be a school
20 that needs only $7,000 and a school that needs
21 $8,500. I do think that local people have a good
22 knowledge of which those schools are. So I think
23 the budget is important. I also think that the
24 -- I said before I think that in terms of
25 choosing supervisory people, I was very glad that
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2 job was taken away from me, and I don't think
3 that that -- I can leave that to the
4 superintendent at any time. I thought that that
5 was it was a very tough job with as many school
6 as many of our districts have. And you're really
7 not at the -- you're not -- we're all not
8 educators. So I think we should lean on the
9 educators for that.
10 But I do believe that whatever is
11 left should keep the responsibilities that it has
12 now. And I think adding the budget is not a very
13 difficult thing to do. I mean, us voting on the
14 budget was important because it let us make a
15 statement as to the direction we want to go.
16 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Thank you.
17 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Rivera.
18 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: You mentioned
19 an alternative way to select community school
20 boards and I think you mentioned that possibly
21 the local school should be involved -- the parent
22 and the local school should be involved. Have
23 you given any thought to what kind of
24 representation the parents are going to have, in
25 other words, if I have a school that has 500
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2 parents are they going to have -- I mean 500
3 students, are they going to have a greater weight
4 than a school that has 200 students? Are you
5 going to have any kind of -- in your concept --
6 MR. GREENBERG: In my model no.
7 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: Let me finish
8 the question. Is there going to be any kind of
9 proportion at representation that you have
10 thought of, how do you go from the concept of
11 parents should be involved to trying to set up a
12 system that eight people, nine people or whatever
13 number we perceive are selected from a
14 geographical area?
15 MR. GREENBERG: Well, first of all,
16 in what I'm saying is pretty much straight
17 forward. One representative from each school.
18 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: So you would
19 have --
20 MR. GREENBERG: I would not have --
21 I wouldn't say because school A has -- you could
22 do it that way, and I don't know that -- it's
23 just something I hadn't thought of, I don't know
24 that it's necessarily right or wrong.
25 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: So in your
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2 district, you have how many schools?
3 MR.GREENBERG: 38.
4 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: So you would
5 have 38 representative in your school -- in your
6 community school board.
7 MR. GREENBERG: Right, one from each
8 school.
9 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Friedman.
10 MR. FRIEDMAN: Mr. Greenberg how are
11 you? You mentioned in your testimony that you've
12 noted more recently that the superintendent was
13 less response to the school board and you eve
14 noted that the superintendent now you see that
15 person as totally responding to the Chancellor
16 and not to the community. What do you attribute
17 that to, is that attributed more to the fact that
18 you're not involved in the hiring of that person?
19 MR. GREENBERG: It's attributed to
20 the fact that on June 30 his contract is up and
21 he knows that it's not going to be the community
22 school board that's going to renew his contract.
23 That's I attribute it to.
24 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Okay, we thank
25 you very much Mr. Greenberg for your testimony
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2 and your success. After the next witness we're
3 going to take a very brief 12 to 15 minute break
4 for people to stretch their limbs or whatever
5 they'd like to stretch. The next witness is
6 Ellen Caldwell , parent and a member of a Parent
7 Teacher Association.
8 MS. CALDWELL: Good morning and
9 happy holidays to all. I know we all need a
10 break here so mine is very brief. I'm Ellen
11 Caldwell, I was the PTA President at P.S. 153 in
12 district 6 in Washington heights. I'm also the
13 proud mother of nine children. Six of them which
14 have come through the public school system. I
15 have three remaining that's coming through the
16 system as of now. I'm in favor of keeping the
17 community boards. They seem to serve as a buffer
18 between the schools and the superintendent.
19 Which is needed.
20 I just want to say to eliminate the
21 board or to give dictorial power to a
22 superintendent, we experiencing that now in
23 district 6. On the hummer that there may not be
24 a community board. To eliminate the board is to
25 eliminate the checks and balances from the
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2 democratic process. To eliminate community
3 school board is a giant step backwards. It's a
4 return to a failed system. Instead of
5 encouraging parental involvement it will
6 discourage it. Thank you.
7 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Any questions? Mr.
8 Green, Assemblyman Green.
9 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: My question is,
10 do you think there's room to perhaps reform and
11 change the existing boards, because I have three
12 school boards in my constituency, one, I think
13 works very -- is very effective and the other two
14 are disasters, to be perfectly honest. We've
15 been plagued by corruption and chronyism, you
16 name it. While I also appreciate what you've
17 said, which is that we need to -- I agree that
18 there all ought to be some form of
19 decentralization. I guess my question is, what
20 is it that we can do, what is is it that we might
21 do to maintain the core principals of
22 decentralization and to ensure that we don't have
23 the other problems that have plagued some of the
24 school board, not all but some?
25 MS. CALDWELL: Well, you do need
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2 more parental involvement and a racial balance.
3 I'm out at district 6, I was the only African
4 American PTA President out of 27 schools. That
5 was an inbalance. Quite often a lot of the
6 meetings were all in Spanish. I don't speak
7 Spanish. So whatever went on, I wasn't privy to.
8 I want to participate. I mentioned earlier I
9 have nine children that came through the public,
10 six-- I'm a mother of nine six which have come
11 through I've always participated, but when you
12 deal with parents, you have you to be fair. To
13 better the community board more parental
14 involvement. You may go to some of the board
15 meetings in the evening in the district and you
16 ask for speaking time, and you don't get the
17 speaking time. It's a lot, I can't say all but I
18 want to say what's occurring in my district. But
19 it's a lot favoritism going on there, but if the
20 board was to be eliminated it's going to be havoc
21 up there, it's going to simply havoc.
22 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: Let me ask
23 another question, is the issue of whether or not
24 there should be appointed boards or direct
25 election, what would you think it should be?
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2 MS. CALDWELL: Direct elections.
3 Give the power to the people. I'm for that. Let
4 us elect let us select, elect and choose who
5 should go on the board. Give us a list, what
6 about Tom Jones, what about Mary Beth, let us
7 select not just put people in that you think
8 belong there. Are you following me Mr. Green.
9 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: I'm trying to
10 get there. You're saying that -- because you know
11 there's democracy and then there's democracy.
12 There's appointed representation and then there's
13 direct election of representation.
14 MS. CALDWELL: Then you have some
15 selection. Not everybody is elected.
16 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: So what you're
17 saying is, help me here, you're saying what would
18 be a better -- you want direct elections?
19 MS. CALDWELL: Yes.
20 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: Do you think the
21 current electoral process is fair?
22 MS. CALDWELL: No.
23 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: So even if we
24 had direct elections you would suggest that we at
25 least change the way that we currently elect
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2 members to school boards.
3 MS. CALDWELL: Yes sir, that's what
4 I'm saying, yes.
5 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: I see. Okay.
6 And one last question, the school district lines
7 went into existence 30 years ago. Do you think
8 they make any sense now the way these lines are,
9 given the demographic changes that have occurred
10 in New York City?
11 MS. CALDWELL: Meaning the
12 districts?
13 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: Well, there's
14 some districts where there are few students and
15 children and there's some districts that are over
16 crowded because the population has shifted.
17 Things have changed over 30 years. We've gone
18 through city councils -- in 30 years we've
19 redrawn city counsel lines three times and state
20 legislative lines three time, congressional line
21 three times and we haven't touched the school
22 district lines. Do you think we need to change
23 the school district lines.
24 MS. CALDWELL: Yes, because of
25 overcrowded situations, yes.
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2 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: And I guess the
3 other question that I would ask is, a number of
4 the witnesses have said that they believe that at
5 the very least, the -- a body that replaces the
6 school boards should be responsible for the
7 budgeting process or have some role in the budget
8 process. Do you agree with that?
9 MS. CALDWELL: Yes.
10 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: You do agree
11 with that. And would that be linked to the
12 comprehensive education plan?
13 MS. CALDWELL: Yes. That's also
14 part of the school leadership, yes.
15 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: Thank you.
16 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Ms. Mullen.
17 MS. MULLEN: Hi Ms. Caldwell, how
18 are you.
19 MS. CALDWELL: Hi, how are you?
20 MS. MULLEN: I find your testimony
21 very interesting because even though you admit
22 that there is some warts within the community
23 board system you think it's certainly preferable
24 to have that than not have it, even though it has
25 issue with it. What would you do, if you would
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2 could, to either change the way the board is
3 composed or structured to eliminate some of
4 favoritism, chronyism whatever may go on, but yet
5 retain the good qualities.
6 MS. CALDWELL: Allow the board
7 members to come out to schools, introduce
8 themselves. In the school where my children
9 attend P.S. 153, not even the teachers are
10 familiar with the board members. So let alone
11 the parents. They have to make themselves more a
12 part of the community and a part of the school,
13 "not just sitting on a stage or a podium."
14 MS. MULLEN: I see, another speaker
15 had said there before, there needed to be more
16 involvement in the individual schools.
17 MS. CALDWELL: Yes they do.
18 MS. MULLEN: How do you see that
19 would somehow stop or not encourage favoritism,
20 chronyism, etcetera, what would that specifically
21 do?
22 MS. CALDWELL: Because then they
23 become a part of the grass roots people.
24 MS. MULLEN: I see. Thank you.
25 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Robin Brown.
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2 MS. BROWN: In terms of the
3 community school boards, how are the community
4 school boards in your district able to help
5 parents right now, act as a buffer between the
6 school and the superintendent, do they do that
7 now.
8 MS. CALDWELL: Yes.
9 MS. BROWN: And how do they do this?
10 MS. CALDWELL: We've had quite a few
11 problem in our district -- well in our school in
12 particular. And letters were written into the
13 superintendent, letters were written to
14 chancellors, letter was written to the mayor, no
15 response. When we made contact with the board,
16 the school board, we got a response. Okay, this
17 is not the first time this was also in the past.
18 My daughter graduated from that school, she's now
19 in high school, five years ago. I now have a set
20 of twins attending that school. They're not the
21 best, but they're far from the worst, our school
22 community board six.
23 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Levin.
24 MR. LEVIN: I wonder if you were a
25 member of this Task Force and the primary
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2 objective was to have more parental involvement
3 in schools, as a mother of nine, how should we go
4 about that?
5 MS. CALDWELL: Educate educate
6 educate. You have to educate your parents. I've
7 sat on the school leadership team and you get
8 parents in by offering them the stipend and quite
9 often the parents come to the table with nothing.
10 They bring nothing to the table, meaning no
11 ideas. They sit there, the leave, they sign in
12 only for the stipend. They're told if you don't
13 put in X amount of hours, you will not receive a
14 stipend. You have to educate them and let them
15 know that this is their children's future. I
16 stay involved because I'm interested in my
17 children's future and you can more or less
18 dictate it if you're involved. You have rights,
19 parents have rights. A lot of parents do not
20 know the rights they have.
21 However, earlier one of the
22 witnesses stated that jargon is used, certain
23 terms are used that go over parents head. And
24 it's true, I've sat there and watched, you know,
25 it's really unfair, and parents are really a
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2 little reluctant to speak, they feel intimidated
3 by a principal, by an assistant principal, by the
4 teachers that's there and years after year
5 sometimes you get the same teachers on the school
6 leadership and they become very bossy and they
7 don't want to listen to the lay men. The parents
8 that is.
9 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Ms. Brown.
10 MS. BROWN: As a parent who do you
11 feel should do the training or facilitate
12 training so that everone is more or less on the
13 same playing field.
14 MS. CALDWELL: An educator that's a
15 parent. If your not a parent -- if you never
16 walked our shoes you wouldn't know. You can't
17 walk the walk. Any other questions?
18 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Well we thank
19 you very much for being, for your testimony and
20 for your suggestions, thank you. It is now 1:10,
21 we're going to take a 15 minute break. So we
22 will reconvene at 1:25.
23 (Recess taken 1:10).
24 (Reconvened).
25 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: All right we are
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2 going to resume if we can have some quite please,
3 Thank you. Our next witness is Diedre Miller. Let
4 me make mention of the fact that just before we
5 recessed Renee Hill, another member of the Task
6 Force arrived. It's good to have you here. Let me
7 just also say for all you in the audience. The
8 members of the Task Force are going to try to
9 discretely gobble down a little Sustenance but we
10 wanted -- so no disrespect to anyone, we'll try
11 to do it as discretely as we can but we don't
12 want any of the members here or any of you faint
13 for lack of -- for food. Diedre Miller, thank
14 you for being here.
15 MS. MILLER: Thank you. Good
16 morning. Good afternoon rather. I'm an involved
17 parent of the district six, I have two children
18 10 and 7, who attend P.S. 153 in lower Manhattan,
19 Washington Heights area. There are a lot issues
20 at my school, at my children's school. Example,
21 issues of the children getting hurt in school
22 yards, no PTA at this time and I feel the
23 principal priority aren't the children's needs.
24 If we don't have a school board system, who
25 should we confer with our issues. Recently, my
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2 son, seven years old had a broken arm and he was
3 out of the six weeks without home instruction or
4 tutorial needs. I conferred with the
5 superintendent. My needs weren't met. I
6 conferred with the school board system and the
7 issue was handled. The school board responded to
8 them quite efficiently. The superintendent
9 shouldn't be given the responsibility by himself,
10 we need a full function support system that
11 includes a school board. We don't want the
12 parents to be discourages that our school board
13 isn't there for them.
14 They should investigate
15 superintendent to see that he does his job. He
16 was chosen by the chancellor not the school board
17 system, not the parents. I'm from a large amount
18 of school parents -- community parents that are
19 involved and we want to see that our children get
20 to learn and be safe while receiving a good
21 education. Thank you.
22 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: We thank you very
23 much Diedre Miller. Questions? I should just
24 make mention the fact that district 6 is very
25 well represented here today. So obviously this is
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2 district that you're apart of that cares very
3 much and we thank you so much for being here.
4 MS. MILLER: Thank you so much.
5 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Our nest witness
6 is Mr. Richard Barr, Co-Chair of the Political
7 Action Committee for Community School District 3
8 and a member of the Presidents Council.
9 MR. BARR: Good afternoon and thanks
10 for taking my testimony. My name is Richard Barr
11 and I've been a parent of 2 children in school
12 district 3 for the last 10 years. I'm Vice
13 President of the P.S. 87 Parent Association and
14 Co-Chair of the district 3 Presidents Council
15 Political Action Committee and as well as I'm a
16 member of the legislative committee of the
17 Chancellor's Parent Advisory Council. For the
18 past few months I've been at meetings of several
19 groups you're hearing from today, that all
20 formed in order to look at community school board
21 issue in light process that you've now finally
22 begun publicly. No one that I have spoken with,
23 who is interested in this issue thinks that there
24 should be an end to local school governance. No
25 one thinks that parents and others who have local
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2 issues within a school district should have to go
3 running to Tweed with them, unless all
4 intermediate possibilities for redress have been
5 exhausted.
6 I doubt if any feel that the school
7 boards as constituted have been perfect. But
8 that doesn't mean they wish to see everything
9 centralized. At the same time, they've all been
10 left with a feeling that there's been little
11 attempt, perhaps deliberately to elicit the input
12 of the stakeholders in the system. Either to
13 recruit them for the panels that you're serving
14 on or to hear there views thereafter. These
15 hearings were just announced, poorly publicized,
16 three of the five sets take place after your
17 preliminary report is due. So that report will
18 obviously be based upon findings other than what
19 you gleamed from these public hearings.
20 It should come as no surprise to you
21 that many feel that the State Legislature is
22 poised to exceed to a desire emanating from City
23 Hall, that the entire system be centralized. And
24 we're talking about a sprawling system of 1.1
25 million students, 1,000 schools and five large
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2 boroughs. The people in Tweed and in City Hall
3 will no more have the magic bullet to address
4 every little problem than there predecessors did.
5 Particularly as the system continues to
6 hemorrhage resources. If a period of budget
7 surpluses didn't result in the city and state
8 spending enough to reach Justice Degrasse's
9 prescription for sufficient funding, then
10 certainly a period of budget deficits won't.
11 Others will give more precise
12 outlines of what there should be in the districts
13 for governance and how you get to it. I don't
14 particularly have strong feelings on those issues
15 so I'm not addressing them. But I'll just say
16 that those involved with the system, parents and
17 others, should have the opportunity to
18 participate in it and if every other school
19 district in the state has local governance, then
20 why shouldn't we.
21 As a parent at a school, I want to
22 know that if there's an issue I can't resolve
23 within the school, or if there's a school-wide
24 issue, then there's a next step to take locally.
25 Go to the district office. And if that doesn't
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2 provide a satisfactory response, then there
3 should be some kind of local governing board
4 which can be turned to and which has the clout to
5 do something about it if it sees fit. There's
6 been a wide spread perception that some school
7 boards have abused power with patronage scandals
8 and the like. But the realty for many of us is
9 that those boards don't currently have enough
10 power to hold anyone accountable. In many cases,
11 and I'll use the example of my own district
12 school board, well meaning, honest people who
13 don't currently have the power to do something
14 meaningful. I'll ad-lib here for a moment.
15 Last year my school discover that
16 from the district transparent budget, that it's
17 budget compared to other none title one
18 elementary schools in the district had been
19 drastically reduced. That a funding gap between
20 us and next lowest funded school had increase by
21 $600,000. $600 per student times $1,000 students.
22 We went to the district superintendent and
23 couldn't get meaningful redress of that problem.
24 And then went to the school board public meet and
25 I don't disparage any of them, but when we
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2 recited the figures and looked to them hoping
3 they might take action, nine nice people, but
4 basically an oil painting. That's what I saw in
5 front of me, because they couldn't do anything
6 about it. I was forced to go to Chancellor Levy
7 directly which I would have preferred not to, he
8 did listen but he said he wouldn't overrule a
9 district superintendent on the issue of a budget
10 for one school.
11 I would have liked to thought that
12 if we could have made our case convincingly to a
13 local governing body they might have actually
14 been in a position to say to the superintendent,
15 we think you need to do something about this.
16 Okay. I'll conclude. Having public
17 district wide meetings to exchange information,
18 to raise common concerns and to better organize
19 the district effectively is important and it
20 can't be replaced by some total centralization
21 within Tweed. Thank you.
22 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Clayton.
23 MR. CLAYTON: How you doing Richard.
24 I want to thank you for coming here today. So let
25 me get this straight, according to your testimony
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2 then you feel that regardless to whatever
3 governing body is in place, using your example as
4 bringing the increase to one school of $600,000
5 and you want to get redress but you just looked
6 at an oil point painting sitting up there. So
7 it's my understanding that whatever entity is put
8 in place, or if the current one remains, that
9 there is bad need of professional development.
10 MR. BARR: Well I would like to see
11 an entity that has some real power. When power
12 was taken away from the school boards because of
13 perceived abuses in some parts of the city, in my
14 mind the baby was thrown out with the bath water.
15 MR. CLAYTON: Okay. But power
16 doesn't seem to have -- would have addressed your
17 issue, if you nine people sitting up there didn't
18 know what you were talking about?
19 MR. BARR: Oh I didn't say they
20 didn't know what I was talking about, I said
21 under the current system they weren't in the
22 position to force a district superintendent to
23 redo a decision because they just didn't have the
24 power to do that.
25 MR. CLAYTON: Well what sort of --
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2 MR. BARR: If even if they wanted
3 to.
4 MR. CLAYTON: Right. So what sort
5 of the clout, you also state that they didn't
6 have clout, what sort of the clout would you
7 envision a new body of holding, of having that
8 could be effective, what sort of the clout would
9 that look like?
10 MR. BARR: Well, I guess -- I
11 haven't, you know, I haven't thought this through
12 very far, so I'm not going to say very much, but
13 to my way of thinking, at least some limited
14 involvement in budget issues within a district I
15 think would make sense. You know, maybe not
16 total, but at least partial involvement with
17 budgetary issues.
18 MR. CLAYTON: Thank you.
19 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Levin.
20 MR. LEVIN: Let's assume this Task
21 Force has no agenda other than the welfare of our
22 students.
23 MR. BARR: I hope that's the case.
24 MR. LEVIN: I can assure you it's
25 the case. Let's assume now we have a fresh
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2 opportunity to design a structure, and one of our
3 primary goals is just to have more parental
4 involvement, nothing to do with centralization.
5 So, let's try and think together about that. What
6 would you suggest based on your own experience,
7 that would provide a mechanism for more active
8 involvement of parents?
9 MR. BARR: Well I think a number of
10 people have spoken to that. I'm not sure if I
11 have anything to add, but I think parents should
12 be involved, though not the only ones involved in
13 selecting a local governance. Parents should be
14 involved, though not necessarily the only ones
15 involved, in sitting on that body, and I think
16 those are two steps, if they were assured, that
17 would -- other than that, a lot of the problems
18 people are mentioning, that, you know, parental
19 involvement is unequal and in different schools
20 and in different communities, owing to a lot of
21 social economical factors et cetera. I honestly
22 don't have anything that I can add as to how to
23 make that better but I recognize that it's a
24 problem.
25 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Yes,
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2 Assemblywoman Phefer.
3 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFER: You are
4 Co-Chair of the political action committee for
5 the President's Council.
6 MR. BARR: OF district 3.
7 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFER: Right. Now the
8 President's Council what is the President's
9 Council and what role do you see that expanding
10 in representative of the parents, since each one
11 sitting on there is a President of a school
12 district -- a school.
13 MR. BARR: Yes. Every school PA or
14 PTA in the district sends someone to the
15 President's Council and they in turn pick one
16 person from that counsel to be the representative
17 to the city-wide Chancellor's Parent Advisory.
18 In my district, the President's Council is fairly
19 well organized. The -- in the school district
20 office we have an office of family and community
21 engagement in and most districts too, that's well
22 organized. So these bodies help to disseminate a
23 lot of information and help bring less organized
24 schools up, you know, to closer to level of
25 better organized schools.
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2 So the more of a mechanism within a
3 district for communication within that district,
4 the more those who have there act together can
5 help those who don't get their act together, and
6 as a result, district 3 turns out, now in
7 disproportionate numbers for hearings, for going
8 to City Hall if there's a funding issue and for
9 committees, because of local organization. If
10 this were all coming from downtown, you know, I
11 don't know if the results would be the same. But
12 if you get good local organization, everybody can
13 help everybody else within a district with the
14 knowledge that they got and help to raise the
15 overall level in the --
16 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFER: So in your
17 district the parent council is representative of
18 the different parents, they have an involvement.
19 Do you see that way of getting to the parent
20 council by having the local parent's association
21 elect a representative, that type of expansion on
22 that level, is that representative?
23 MR. BARR: Well, sure. I think it's
24 such a big city and such a big system that really
25 you probably need all kinds of models, you know.
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2 An effective central department of education
3 operating out of Tweed and several organizations
4 within district within districts and borough-wide
5 and then you know sort of funneling into
6 city-wide. I just don't think any one or two
7 organizational structures alone will do it. I
8 think the more that works, the better. You know
9 it seems to me. Because then if somebody doesn't
10 hear about it from one distribution list, they
11 might here from another. The more information is
12 flowing and the more people can learn from what
13 other people have already gone through and
14 accomplished, the better the hopes of bringing
15 the whole system up.
16 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFER: Thank you.
17 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Just for the
18 clarity of the record Mr. Barr, let me just say,
19 I understand I appreciate skepticism. I think we
20 all know that the public watches these processes
21 many people don't feel that they have enough
22 access. Don't know enough about the hearing, so
23 I understand the skepticism that you present. I
24 would associate my remarks with Mr. Levin and
25 just and just tell you that this is a very
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2 serious, very honest effort to do a very
3 difficult thing and come up with a structure and
4 a system that will work and hopefully work better
5 than the previous one. The only point I wanted
6 to make was that people should not be confused
7 about the December 15 preliminary report. You
8 are correct when you observed that that report
9 will be issued even before the hearings are
10 completed. Because there will be two more
11 hearings in January. The purpose of that report
12 was never to make preliminary findings. The law
13 required us to make a preliminary report
14 basically about the progress, the schedule, what
15 had happened, what is still to happen before the
16 final report is done. So it will be the February
17 15 report that will contain the recommendations,
18 the proposals that will be gleamed by all five
19 public hearings, and our role right now is to
20 listen carefully.
21 MR. BARR: Well, will -- after that
22 report is made after February 15, will the public
23 have a chance to weigh in before the legislature
24 acts?
25 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Sure, because
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2 the way the process will work is that once this
3 Task Force makes it's report, the legislature
4 will have a period of time to consider what it
5 has -- what we have recommended. They may want
6 to do something different. They may concur with
7 our results. The public will certainly have an
8 opportunity to contact their local
9 representatives and talk about their views about
10 the report and then even after the legislature
11 adopts a law, presumably one that this Task Force
12 has recommended, it still has to be reviewed by
13 the Justice Department and the public will have
14 yet another opportunity to make their views known
15 before the Justice Department. So I'm confident
16 that there will be ample opportunity for people
17 to comment on the evolution of our thinking
18 process, and then comment on the end product.
19 And we thank you very much for your presence here
20 today sir. Thank you.
21 MR. BARR: Thank you.
22 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Our next
23 speaker is Leonie Haimson, Chair of Class Size
24 Matters.
25 MS. HAIMSON: Hi, thank you. My name
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2 is Leonie Haimson, I'm a parent and a Chair of an
3 organization called Class Size Matters. I'm also
4 a member of APRPE, Advocates for Public
5 Representation and Public Education. I want to
6 start out by saying that it's unfortunate that so
7 little time is being given to such an important
8 issue. Few parents know about these hearings and
9 even fewer were able to attend. As parents we're
10 always asked to give more time and participate
11 more in our children's education. We spend
12 hours, many of us, volunteering with the PTA,
13 raising money, helping our children with
14 homework, trying to fill in all the gaps of there
15 under funded schools and over crowded classrooms.
16 And then when our schools aren't succeeding all
17 too often is the excuse is that the problem is a
18 lack of parental involvement. When asked
19 recently how to increase parent engagement during
20 a focus group organized as part of Chancellor
21 Klein's children's first effort, I respond that
22 it was simple. Just give them a sense that
23 their voice will be heard.
24 Instead the few opportunities we've
25 had to participate in a substantive way already
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2 far more limited than parent in the rest of state
3 continue to be whittled, away. I have a few
4 practical suggestions to offer that can improve
5 the system as it exists now, rather than dispose
6 of it altogether. For as long as districts are
7 given the authority to set educational policy,
8 choose curriculum and allocate discretionary
9 funds, it is important that some district level
10 body exist that can benefit from our
11 participation.
12 First of all the new community
13 school boards or councils, as someone had
14 suggested they be called, should wield more
15 authority than they presently hold. Including
16 budgetary authority as Tim Kremer and Richard
17 Barr have mentioned. They should contain an a
18 mixture of elected and appointed members, from
19 three different groups. Some should be appointed
20 by borough presidents and/or the community
21 boards, who are often more in tune with the needs
22 and desires of their constituents, than the
23 members of present day school boards are. These
24 could be parents advocates or simply other
25 stakeholders who are involved in active an
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2 educational affairs. Some should be elected
3 directly by the voters, but these elections
4 should be scheduled at the same time as regular
5 city-wide elections, so as to ensure greater turn
6 out than presently occurs.
7 The majority of those on these
8 councils should be chosen from the parent members
9 of the district school leadership teams, which
10 you've heard a lot about today. These are the
11 people on the front lines who have the tasks of
12 putting together plans to raise student
13 achievement in their children schools, often
14 without the real tools to do so. Whether it be
15 the decision to replace an inadequate math
16 curriculum or allocate more district funds to
17 reduce class size.
18 When I was a member of the school
19 leadership team at my daughter's school helping
20 to put together our comprehensive education plan,
21 I was often frustrated knowing how little ability
22 we actually had to change any of the things that
23 really mattered in terms of improving our school.
24 We were charged with this task, but we had no
25 authority to actually do anything about it. I
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2 know many other parents who feels similarly
3 frustrated realizing all too well with what the
4 problems are with the way our children are being
5 educated, but being powerless to do anything
6 about it.
7 To ensure greater transparency and
8 involve even more parents and community members
9 in the process, the district should be required
10 to post more information on the internet. We
11 have this wonderful new tool called the internet,
12 many parents have access to it and we should use
13 it much more effectively. For example, district
14 report cards should post on the web, not just
15 test scores, but equally important information
16 like transfer and discharge rates, and average
17 class size per grade, both on the district-wide
18 and school-wide level. This important is
19 inaccessible at the present time. Every district
20 should also have to post a preliminary draft it's
21 comprehensive education plan on line and receive
22 comments on this plan from parents, advocates and
23 community members.
24 Far too few parents have the time to
25 go regularly to school board meetings and in
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2 order to open the process up to more people, this
3 would be a very simple way of doing it. As
4 federal agencies are now required to do, they
5 should post these public comments from the
6 community on their Web site as well in addition
7 to posting their own responses to these comments
8 and explain why or why not they are incorporating
9 these suggestions into the final district plan.
10 Now this is done regularly on the federal level
11 if you look at EPA web sites. Whenever they come
12 up with an environmental plan for example on
13 climate change or on how to reduce water
14 pollution in the Mississippi Basin, they put out
15 a preliminary plan, everybody is invited to
16 submit comments and all those comments are posted
17 along with the responses from the EPA before they
18 submit their final plan. And you'll be
19 surprised, they are often very interesting,
20 extremely important up there that the public,
21 whether it be advocates or just people resident s
22 of those areas submit, and they end up being
23 incorporated into the final plan.
24 I append to my testimony an article
25 I recently wrote for the Gotham Gazette, on how
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2 the Department of Education should go through a
3 similar when formulating it's plan for our public
4 schools. But it's important for this to be done
5 on a district level as well. Indeed if you
6 really want parental participation all you have
7 to do is provide you with the necessary tools and
8 I guarantee you that parents will respond with
9 both passion and the perspective of those who
10 know the system and it's flaws more clearly, than
11 many of those who are currently making the
12 decisions for us.
13 Finally I want to ask that you, the
14 members of this Task Force also adopt a process
15 that is open and transparent. Especially since
16 these hearings have been so horridly scheduled.
17 Before making any final decision as to what
18 system will replace our community school boards,
19 I ask to you present an initial draft and post it
20 on line. Especially to give those who have not
21 had the opportunity to testify to have their
22 comments heard. You have the chance here to do
23 something substantive in terms of process alone
24 that could provide a valuable model for how the
25 school system as a whole could better operate. I
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2 ask to you include us, parents, community members
3 and advocates as much as possible from this
4 moment on and to change the destructive pattern
5 that has so frequently been seen in this city and
6 in this state, particularly when it comes to our
7 schools. Of making quick decisions behind closed
8 doors about the future of our children. Thank
9 you very much.
10 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Clayton.
11 MR. CLAYTON: How you doing Leonie?
12 MS. HAIMSON: Hi.
13 MR. CLAYTON: First of all, I just
14 want to say I think you gave a wonderful
15 testimony here and I was sort of sadden to hear
16 that your school leadership team went through
17 it's duty of preparing the comprehensive
18 education plan and have the to commend you and
19 your team for getting that far, and was frustrate
20 that you felt that you couldn't make a change in
21 your local school. Can you tell us why -- how
22 could I put this, can you tell us why your plan,
23 your comprehensive education plan was not adopted
24 by the the school, is there a reason why they
25 didn't adopt it?
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2 MS. HAIMSON: Well, we -- the school
3 adopted our plan. It's just there were a lot of
4 areas which we had no discretion and authority to
5 deal with. I can give you two very concrete
6 examples on that. One is the math curriculum in
7 my district, which many parents and teachers find
8 to be completely ineffective and counter
9 productive. And that curriculum is set on the
10 district level, so there was nothing that we
11 could do on our school level even though the
12 principal and the teachers themselves had
13 admitted many times that they thought that it was
14 totally inadequate there was nothing they could
15 do about it.
16 Another issue that often comes up
17 with is the allocation of district funds.
18 Districts have a lot of discretionary funds that
19 they can allocate between different competing
20 issues. For example, professional development
21 and hiring teachers to keep class sizes small.
22 And I happen to be in a district, my daughter
23 went to school in a district, which believes very
24 strongly that they should be put a maximum amount
25 of professional development money in and we have,
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2 as a result some of the largest class sizes of
3 any school district that is not over capacity in
4 the city.
5 So those are two very concrete
6 examples of things that we really had no
7 discretion or authority to address in the
8 comprehensive education plan, but that we very
9 much would have liked to.
10 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Let me just make
11 a brief comment about the process, because I
12 understand your concern, Leonie and I understand
13 the point you've made. The Task Force itself was
14 actually constituted the last week of October. I
15 think it was October the 30. And then based on
16 the holiday schedule and of Thanksgiving in
17 November, based on the fact that we can't really
18 hold hearings when we get too close to the
19 Christmas, New Years season, we were left with a
20 more compressed schedule than I think any of us
21 would have preferred. But I am confident at
22 fact, that even though the first hearing there
23 was only about a week's notice at best before
24 people received notification, the other hearings
25 that we have for one in Queens in two days and
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2 certainty the Bronx, 10 days from now and two in
3 January. I don't think there's any reason why we
4 shouldn't have a optimum turn out at those
5 hearings and frankly people who may have found
6 the Manhattan hearing was too short notice, they
7 also have an opportunity to attend any of the
8 other hearings or submit their testimony in
9 writing.
10 We are going to do our level best,
11 given a very compressed time frame. We're going
12 to do our level best to make this as accessible
13 and as available to people as we can. And then
14 there will be ample opportunity as I mention to
15 Mr. Barr, they'll be ample opportunity once the
16 Task Force issues this report on February 15, for
17 the public to comment before the State
18 Legislature, who will be the final arbiter in
19 whatever changes will be made and then of course
20 the justice department still has to weigh in. So
21 I just wanted you to know that we understand that
22 there's a certain frustration. There's a short
23 time line here, and we're going to utilize the
24 next 9:00 or 10:00 weeks as best as we can to
25 make it as open as we can and to give the public
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2 the greatest opportunity to comment that we
3 possibly can.
4 MS. HAIMSON: Right, but what I'm
5 talking about I think is a pattern that we've
6 seen in the way decisions have been made for us.
7 Including the deliberations of a previous panel
8 that handed over the school system to mayoral
9 control. And once it goes to the State
10 Legislature, I know that I speak for a lot
11 parents, where we feel very frustrated in trying
12 to affect what happens at that level, unless
13 there say process that is incorporated into the
14 deliberations, which explicitly asks and allows
15 for our participation. And so that that's why I
16 was trying to use the model of the federal
17 agencies, which have these laws about how to
18 include the public more in the formulation of a
19 final plan. And it really works very well.
20 And I think that if -- I mean, I
21 accept your sincerity and I commend you on being
22 here and working hard, but if you're really
23 interested in involving as many people as
24 possible in a real formal sense in what the plan
25 ends up looking like, there are some relatively
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2 simple tools that can achieve this. Even within a
3 compressed time frame. In fact, I would argue
4 that because the time frame is so compressed you
5 should look for ways in order to involve the
6 public even more. So that's why I came up with
7 this idea, which I think is also a very good
8 idea for how to include the public and parents
9 more in the deliberations over the future of
10 their school district and the school system as a
11 whole.
12 Because many parents are pressed for
13 time. They can't always come to school board
14 meetings. They often feel when that when they do
15 come to school board meetings, whatever they say
16 is ignored and this is a very easy way of
17 incorporating an operate process which could
18 actually have some very good results in terms of
19 enlisting more public participation and actually
20 creating a school system which could use some of
21 our suggestions, because we really do know it
22 quite well, many of us and we know it's flaws.
23 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Levin.
24 MR. LEVIN: Thank you for your
25 spirit and a constructive testimony. I just want
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2 to follow up on something I have more than a
3 casual interest in and that's the use of
4 internet. Not just for the purposes of this
5 process. But tell us a little bit about what's
6 already taking place and how we might benefit
7 from that in structuring something to use the
8 internet as a way for communication, more
9 engagement, more involvement, more information,
10 when on the other hand there may be some
11 disparity of access based on, you know
12 availability and understanding of it so we don't
13 have perpetuate that.
14 MS. HAIMSON: Yes. There's
15 certainly disparity of access but latest figures
16 I heard, which don't quote me exactly, but it's
17 something like over 60 to 70 percent of parents
18 have access to the internet in New York City now.
19 And those who don't have computer in their home
20 can use it at the library.
21 I was very surprised to find that a
22 lot of young people, who don't even have homes
23 anymore, who don't have settled addresses and
24 don't have phone numbers, the only way can you
25 and I was trying to get some people to come to a
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2 meeting that I was organizing, and he had an
3 e-mail address which he checked every day. So
4 that was actually the best way to inform people
5 to keep them up to date, even for people who
6 don't even have homes, so I think that you would
7 be surprised at how mainstream it is now to have
8 computers out there. And for those who don't
9 have computers, to have places where they do
10 check, they can check e-mail, they can check the
11 internet and they use it on a daily, if not
12 daily, a weekly basis in order to keep informed
13 about what's going on.
14 And certainly for at least half the
15 parents in the school system this is something
16 that could, you know, truly engage them on an on
17 going basis and in a very substantive way in not
18 only letting them know what's going on, but
19 allowing them to contribute to whatever decisions
20 are made.
21 Finally, I'd just like to talk about
22 the question you usually ask people, which is the
23 parental participation. You know I've addressed
24 in this one way on the internet which I really
25 think is an important tool which should not be
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2 forgotten. I also believe that there is an
3 office of parent and family engagement in every
4 school district, but mostly they don't work very
5 well but there are a few districts like district
6 2, where they have a terrific person in charge
7 and she does wonderful outreach. In my old
8 district, the person who was in charge of that
9 was given 5 other things to do at the same time,
10 because honestly they weren't that interested in
11 engaging parents and she had no time to ever even
12 -- often not even to answer her phone messages.
13 So that's the second thing of the
14 third thing has more to do with a basic
15 structural change in our schools. I head an
16 organization call Class Size Matters and I think,
17 many of you probably know that there have been a
18 lost research showing that smaller classes lead
19 directly to more student achievement. But there
20 are a tremendous number of ancillary benefits of
21 smaller classes as well, which are not as clearly
22 publicized to people and one of them is more
23 parent engagement in the classroom. There have
24 been studies in Wisconsin and California, which
25 show that after class sizes were reduced,
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2 teachers had more time to reach out to parents
3 and discuss with them the issue that went on in
4 the classroom, whether there kids needed more
5 help or were simply doing things well. They
6 really didn't have time to do that except on an
7 emergency basis, when they had so many kids in
8 the classroom.
9 A simple thing like parent teacher
10 night, which in New York City, I don't know
11 whether you know, because of the huge class
12 system we often only get eight minutes with our
13 students teacher. I did a study for educational
14 priorities panel on some of the results of the
15 first year of implementation of smaller classes
16 and one of the after effects in those schools
17 which had the funds to reduce class sizes, which
18 was commented parents and teachers, was that
19 finally they got 20 minutes to spend or on parent
20 teacher night with there kid's teacher and that
21 made a tremendous amount of difference. So
22 that's one of the the things that our over
23 burdened teachers and over crowded classrooms are
24 not dealing too well at.
25 Enlisting the support and help of
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2 parents in their children's education because the
3 teachers simply don't have time to do it.
4 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: We thank you
5 very much for your testimony and for your hard
6 work for very many years, thank you.
7 MS. HAIMSON: Okay, thank you.
8 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Sam Anderson,
9 Education Director of the Center for Law and
10 Social Justice at Medgar Evers College.
11 MR. ANDERSON: Good afternoon. Like
12 you said, I'm Sam Anderson, I am the Education
13 Director at the Center for Law and Social Justice
14 at Medgar Evers College and also Director of the
15 Parent Advocacy Center there. We've come up with
16 for the Task Force here, a proposal, alternative
17 school governance proposal. Through consultation
18 with many many parents and teachers and
19 educational advocates in March of this year. We
20 anticipated that this Task Force was going to
21 come into existence, so we came up with it. And
22 we will get this proposal to you as soon as
23 possible I did not bring but one copy, I can
24 leave this copy with you.
25 SPEAKER: This is not it, is it?
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2 MR. ANDERSON: No, there is another
3 one. There's another one, a little more nuts and
4 bolts kind of thing. Before I get into the nuts
5 and bolts, I'd like to put the proposal in
6 context. One, is four contextual areas in which
7 we were working -- based the proposal on, One is
8 the importance of continuation of the community
9 control struggles that emanated in New York City
10 from the 1960's and 70's. Because that's a
11 struggle for power, a struggle for people in
12 communities of color particularly, for power over
13 education and the development of education.
14 Another area is that, obvious that the New York
15 City public education system is in dire straights
16 and it needs radical reform, radical solutions.
17 We cannot do nice polite solutions on something
18 that is devastating, that is really criminal act
19 upon our children.
20 Thirdly, most and very important in
21 this period of selective presidencies, we need to
22 maintain the mandates of the voting rights act.
23 The voting rights act -- let me put it this way,
24 the entree into the electoral political arena
25 into elections and so forth, in New York City
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2 for people of color and particularly people of
3 first generation Immigrants, is the school board
4 elections. No other way entree that they have.
5 So that's a third factor.
6 A fourth factor is that the
7 structure that we are coming up with needs to
8 reflect the cosmopolitan nature of this city's
9 communities and the vast size of the school
10 population, It needs to reflect the diversity, in
11 other words, in language, in culture, in
12 spirituality, in many many ways, it needs to
13 reflect that. We don't have that as -- if we
14 don't have that as a mandate, we will just have
15 some nice white folks running the school system.
16 Which is not a good deal.
17 What we propose, we propose that New
18 Yorkers structure school governance from the
19 bottom up. That is we propose that communities
20 through power of parents and students can and
21 should govern schools and have the power and the
22 will to create educational excellence. Under our
23 school governance proposal, there would be no
24 central Board of Education, as we know it. The
25 parent structure is -- the present structure is a
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2 top down, burdensome bureaucracy that perpetuates
3 it's educational abuse and racism. So no matter
4 who is on top, we still get educational abuse and
5 racism. We are effecting away to bring -- we are
6 offering away to bring democracy and true parent
7 involvement and leadership to the day-to-day
8 education process for New York City's more than
9 1.2 million public school students.
10 Our school governance structure
11 places power and responsibility of developing and
12 maintaining a quality education system in the
13 hands, hearts and minds of parents and students
14 representatives with a semiautonomous governing
15 body. Elected Legislators, Mayoral Executives
16 and administrative bureaucracies are peripheral
17 to this governance structure. Each -- now, in
18 terms of how it's set up, each public school in
19 New York City would be required to have a
20 functioning school counsel as it's governing body
21 to be eligible for state and federal funds and
22 any other operating funds. The parent and
23 student members of the school council shall be
24 elected, elected by parents and students. And we
25 discussed the student aspect and at this point
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2 we're saying that that kicks in at the six grade.
3 Parent members shall comprise the
4 majority of the school council. Each parent
5 shall represent 50 students and their parents
6 within that school. For example, if P.S. 388 in
7 district 44, has between 501 and 550 children
8 enrolled, then it would have 11 parents on it's
9 school council. Similarly, every student member
10 and teacher member shall represent 200 students.
11 If there are less than 400 students within the
12 school, however, they shall be a minimum of two
13 student members and two teacher members on the
14 school council. The principal or teacher in
15 charge shall serve a full -- as a full voting
16 member of the school council. The school council
17 shall have the power to establish educational
18 and administrative policy for the school,
19 including, but not limited to, setting approving
20 and monitoring the school budget. Setting
21 academic goals, curriculum and accountability
22 measures for teachers, administrators, students
23 and parents.
24 Establishing and approving school
25 educational improvement plans and establishing
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2 the schools administrative procedures. The
3 school council shall also have the power to hire
4 and fire staff and administrators, including
5 teachers and administrators. All school council
6 members shall serve as unpaid volunteers. Each
7 parent, teacher, student and the principal school
8 council members will be an equal partner in
9 conducting school council business. And it goes
10 on from there in more details on how this
11 actually develops and how people are elected to
12 this school council and when they are elected and
13 so forth.
14 What it means is that we estimated,
15 that in order to have democracy within a 1.2
16 million student body school system that the
17 minimum number of people actively involved would
18 be about 25,000 and that there are regional
19 meetings -- I mean not regional, I'm sorry,
20 there are borough meetings and then there are,
21 I'm sorry, school district meetings. We maintain
22 the school district areas that exist now and that
23 there will be meetings, meetings by various
24 kinds. And then there are borough-wide meetings
25 and then there's a city-wide governing body that
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2 is not the present mayoral elected governing body
3 but a governing body comprised of representative
4 from all of the other boroughs. And from there,
5 we would also anticipate the importance of annual
6 city-wide educational conventions, in which
7 everybody is invited to the conventions and those
8 conventions produce policy aspects that will
9 affect the city on a whole in terms of public
10 education.
11 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Thank you very
12 much sir. Mr. Green. Mr. Lavalle. Mr. Green.
13 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: Thank you. Sir,
14 the issue of direct elections versus appointed
15 members, could you again go over that again,
16 because there is clearly -- and let me say one of
17 the concerns and then maybe can you articulate
18 where there's a fix for this. One of the concerns
19 is that -- or what has been articulated when you
20 look at some best practices of governance, some
21 have looked at local community boards as an
22 example, not the school boards, well it used to
23 be the community planning boards. The community
24 boards as a example of the democratic process
25 that seems to function without some of the other
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2 problems that we've gotten into with the election
3 of school board members. Where we've seen, you
4 know, patronage, chronyism and other kinds of
5 corrupting activities. And so some have said
6 that, is it possible to have a form of democratic
7 representation without direct election, and what
8 would be your response to that?
9 MR. ANDERSON: Our response is yes,
10 but at the same time the Center for Law and
11 Social Justice feels that there needs to be a
12 mechanism that maintains the entree level to the
13 democratic process of elections. And that the
14 school board, school board -- that electing
15 representatives for public education is probably
16 for New York City as we see it in the present
17 period, the best way. So we are emphasizing,
18 encouraging the electoral process at that grass
19 roots level to happen. And that it does not mean
20 that because it is developing at the grass roots
21 level it is automatically corrupting. It is how
22 one shapes the spirit of the electoral process
23 that governs the corruptiveness or lack of
24 corruption that's there. And so that's our
25 emphasis.
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2 We understand that, for example,
3 that on task forces, that come and go within our
4 structure, that those are appointed in a very
5 similar manner that you're talking about,
6 democratically appointed, task forces. So we
7 have incorporated that suggestion in the task
8 force areas. However in terms of the parent who
9 is representing 50 students at a particular
10 school, that parent will go through, in order to
11 be that representative, will go true through an
12 /HREBG /TOR Al method.
13 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: The elections
14 would be primarily contained within the school
15 building?
16 MR. ANDERSON: Right. Within the
17 school building. Within a period of, we were
18 suggesting May, it's open ended. We had
19 suggested May for a week, ranging from 6 in the
20 morning until 9 at night. Other people made
21 suggestions of doing it during the time of the
22 local election period, November or whenever
23 there's a primary of or something like that.
24 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Robin Brown.
25 MS. BROWN: I just have a question,
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2 regardless if people are appointed or elected, it
3 would seem that the main focus would be for
4 children to do well in school. And again, people
5 would need to know the types of questions to ask
6 and what to look at to guarantee this. In your
7 structure, and I've seen your plan, what's the
8 mechanism to get people to that point, knowing
9 the questions to ask and what's good curriculum,
10 what's bad curriculum, what's a good teacher,
11 what's a bad teacher, whose a good administrator,
12 whose a not so good administrator, I need to be
13 clear on that piece?
14 MR. ANDERSON: There are 2 main
15 ways. One is, within the proposal it says that
16 there are parent organizers, and parent
17 organizers not of the present old school type
18 that are, as one person mentioned, doing a bunch
19 of other things. These are parent organizers who
20 are trained to inform all of the parents about
21 the ins and outs of the educational system, and
22 what is -- who -- how do you identify good
23 teaching, good curriculum and so forth. All of
24 those kinds of things. As well as how to run a
25 meeting. How to get the word out about a
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2 meeting, all of those basic kind of things.
3 These parent organizers will be one of the
4 vehicles in which we develop a higher
5 consciousness, education consciousness among
6 parent necessary New York City.
7 The second factor, is that we're
8 proposing that there are these conventions, these
9 meetings, these conventions, either on the
10 district-wide or borough-wide and then eventually
11 city-wide, conventions in which parents,
12 teachers, students, administrators, educational
13 experts and so forth, consultants and what have
14 you, come together and these conventions are
15 really working conventions, dealing with some of
16 the burning issues of the local communities,
17 local schools, and also on a city-wide basis. And
18 parents are there gathering the information and
19 so forth. And also the ongoing information that
20 would be available through the use of the
21 internet, through pamphlets, through television
22 programs and so forth that would develop on WNYE,
23 WNYC and some of the radio programs and so forth
24 that will -- what we see as turshiary level
25 informing parents about the various realties of
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2 educational governance.
3 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Friedman.
4 MR. FRIEDMAN: Just one question.
5 Your plan calls for involving a lot of parents,
6 in a school of 1,000, you're talking about 20
7 parents, 5 teachers, 5 students. In my district,
8 for example, we have -- we struggled for 25
9 people to a PA meeting. We struggle to get
10 people to fill out executive boards PA's and even
11 to get people to sit on district-wide seat 30
12 councils. How do you propose getting many
13 parents involved when nothing that we have looked
14 at has worked?
15 MR. ANDERSON: That's a good
16 question. One, this is something that we studied
17 from the Chicago model and a number of other
18 cities across the country. Eugene, Oregan, to a
19 lesser extent, Berkley also. What we found was
20 that if there is a dynamic development prior to
21 the creation of this, where all forms of media is
22 utilized to inform parents that if this structure
23 comes into place and you're not part of it, then
24 it's even a more ruin a situation than the
25 horrendous situation you have now in the school
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2 system.
3 And it involves in the initial
4 thing, getting the parent organizers out and
5 moving in great numbers. The parent organizers
6 are not just 5 or 6 for a district, but there are
7 a number of them, 25 or 30 parent organizers,
8 full time, not part time, full time, out doing
9 this work and getting the parents involved.
10 In the initial stages in the development of this.
11 And that -- we feel that it's from there that
12 this idea that the school system is no longer in
13 the hands of politicians, no longer in the hands
14 of bureaucrats, but the school system is now in
15 your hands and if it falls on it's face, it is
16 your problem, your fault. And we don't -- what
17 we're advocating is that we don't speak in pretty
18 terms around that. That we be very direct with
19 that mandate. This is a mandate for parents to
20 be involved.
21 And at the same time, like I said,
22 have the vehicles available for them to be
23 involved. The parent organizers. The space
24 provided in the schools. And the training that
25 would be immediately available for the parents
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2 who would want to get involved in the school, and
3 then the whole election aspect of that. So in a
4 nut shell, we feel that it is more of the
5 subjective factor that will transform the present
6 cynicism or apathy that exist city-wide among
7 parents, into something that is much more
8 positive and rewarding for our children.
9 And the other factor is, we're also
10 saying students are involved. That they form
11 there autogamies governing body from the sixth
12 grade on, and getting and being organized and
13 getting involved in that. This is an opportunity
14 that many young people never even could perceive
15 of coming, you know, of seeing themselves as part
16 of the school governance apparatus and we feel
17 that that would be embraced by young people very
18 enthusiastically.
19 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Assemblyman Rivera
20 and then back to Robin Brown. Robin.
21 MS. BROWN: You mentioned the parent
22 organizers, how would they be funded and would it
23 be mandated through the State Legislature to fund
24 these organizers? Since I'm believes that there
25 role would be just to go out and organize and let
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2 folks know that these are the issues and this is
3 how you get involved more or less like an
4 empowerment type of group. Who would or where
5 would you recommend they be paid for or how would
6 they be paid for?
7 MR. ANDERSON: The funding can come
8 from both the state -- or three areas. The
9 funding can come from the federal, the state, and
10 the local funding agencies. The No Child Left
11 Behind Act, as horrible as that is, is supposed
12 to advocating for more parent involvement. So I
13 assume that in the No Child Left Behind Act,
14 there should be some money set aside for the
15 creation of parent organizers, whatever terms
16 they may use. If it's not there then that's up
17 to the Legislators to interpret some areas of the
18 act so that money can be freed up for these
19 parent organizers.
20 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Anderson, we
21 very much appreciate your views, your being here,
22 certainly The Center for Law and Social Justice
23 at Medgar Evers College, it's reputation precedes
24 itself and we're so grateful of having you as the
25 Education Director here to advise us. We very
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2 much appreciate it.
3 MR. ANDERSON: Thank you.
4 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Michael
5 Rebell, Executive Director of the Campaign for
6 Fiscal Equity.
7 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: I should just
8 observe Michael you weren't here when we began
9 but as I'm looking at your voluminous document we
10 are trying to keep the testimony phase to about
11 five minutes and then there's question and
12 answers, so.
13 MR. REBELL: That's why I gave you
14 so many pages to read at home.
15 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: It is a weighted
16 document.
17 MR. REBELL: Mr. Sanders,
18 Ms. Thomson, ladies and gentlemen, I'm Michael
19 Rebel, I'm the Executive Director of the Campaign
20 for Fiscal Equity. Many of you may be familiar
21 with the lawsuit that we've been waging for the
22 past few years to try to gain adequate funding
23 for New York City schools and indeed for all
24 schools throughout the state that are not
25 receiving the amount of money they need to
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2 provide all children a sound basic education. So
3 you may ask what am I doing here in a hearing on
4 governance mechanisms and issues of that type.
5 Well let me begin by saying although
6 our lawsuit is seeking more money, we are not
7 seeking money in the abstract. And from the
8 beginning our concern has been to get the
9 resources that kids need in order to truly gain
10 the opportunity for a sound basic education.
11 That clearly means that there has to be a serious
12 system of accountability to make sure that any
13 additional funds that do flow, from the lawsuit
14 we hope to win when we go to the court of the
15 appeals this Spring are spent well and are spent
16 in a way that results in monsterable improvements
17 in student achievement.
18 For that reason, we ask Justice
19 DeGrasse, Justice Leland DeGrasse who issued a
20 very extensive, strong, opinion in his decision a
21 year and a half go ago that had found the state's
22 funding system unconstitutional. We asked
23 Justice DeGrasse in addition to outlining the
24 basic guidelines for a reformed funding system,
25 to mandate that the state come up with a new
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2 accountability system and Justice DeGrasse did do
3 that, his order as you know is on temporary on
4 hold until we finish the appeals process. But
5 anticipating the implementation phase of this
6 case, last year we initiated a state-wide school
7 accountability project to begin thinking and
8 exploring the nature of an accountability system
9 that really would make a difference for children.
10 Now, accountability we all know is
11 very much a buzz word that's before us on the
12 federal level, the state level, the city level
13 and much of that talk has to do with sanctions,
14 with penalties, with testing requirements for
15 students, with pressures on teachers to achieve
16 certain results. But there's very little
17 emphasis on making sure that the students and the
18 teachers and the people in the schools have the
19 tools they need to achieve those results. I'm
20 talking first all about adequate resources but
21 I'm also talking about the educational components
22 and the community involvement components that are
23 necessary to really make a school function as we
24 all know.
25 So our approach to accountability
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2 was to look at the school level and to say, if
3 indeed we obtain adequate funding for all schools
4 in New York City, what difference is that really
5 going to make at the school level? What
6 difference could it make? What difference should
7 it make? And we had a demonstration school
8 project where we went to 14 different schools in
9 various parts of the state, half of them in the
10 city half upstate, and we ran a very interesting
11 experiment. We had groups of people in each
12 school, some places it was the school leadership
13 council and others it was groupings of students,
14 teachers, administrators, parents, who came
15 together to work on this project. And the first
16 thing we asked them to do in sessions with a
17 trained facilitator, was to say, do an inventory
18 of the resource in your school. What is missing?
19 And people loved this, it gave them a real
20 opportunity to focus on what was missing, with
21 some hope that maybe somebody would listen and
22 help them get it, which we see as getting our
23 job.
24 Once we had that inventory and we
25 put it in priority order, the next question we
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2 asked was, okay if you get all this money that
3 you say you need and these priority area, what
4 are you going to do with it? What kind of
5 education planning are you going to come up with?
6 What steps are you going to take to create the
7 climate for teaching and learning that's going
8 to really make a difference for children? And
9 you would be amazed at the creative ideas that
10 came forward. It's a very different exercise
11 from the education plans that go on today, the
12 comprehensive education plan that's in a deficit
13 model. The focus there is always on how can we
14 make do? How can we cover this when we don't have
15 enough? But we freed people up to think big and
16 to say if you really had the resource what would
17 you do.
18 And once they got those plans
19 together the third part of this exercise was to
20 say, okay, if you got the money and you got a
21 good plan, how are we going to make sure it
22 happens? How do we hold everybody in this school
23 community accountable for making sure this is
24 carried out? And yes they'll be test scores and
25 we'll measure by test scores, because that's
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2 inevitable in this world, but people have a lot
3 of criticism of relying only on test. So here's
4 your chance. What in addition to test should we
5 have in that accountability model? And again,
6 incredibly wonderful ideas, that's why I gave you
7 all the papers and the attachments that
8 summarizes all of this.
9 All right, what does all of this
10 have to do with school governance, the
11 substitution for community school boards, that's
12 going to come in the city. Well it has this to
13 do with it, we're convinced that true
14 accountability and true education form has to be
15 focused primarily at the school level, and many
16 people say that, many people know that, we want
17 to join in that chorus. But from our hands on
18 experimenting with approaches, that really make a
19 different difference. We think that to engage a
20 school community to make things like school
21 leadership teams really work, you got to give
22 people concrete task and concrete
23 responsibilities of the kind that we were just
24 outlining.
25 We envision a system where we would
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2 encourage all schools throughout the city to go
3 through the kind of exercises I'm were talking
4 about, do that kind of planning and hold
5 themselves accountable. That's one way
6 Mr. Friedman, that you can get parents in there.
7 When they think that they are doing something
8 that's going to make a difference, and it's
9 serious and it's not window dressing, it's not
10 just passing on reports to somebody else. But if
11 your serious about doing this, people at the
12 school level can't do it alone. That's where we
13 need a mid-level governance structure that is
14 seriously supportive.
15 You need a district level body that
16 can provide technical assistance to this kind of
17 school oriented operation and that kind of
18 assistance means material, it means information,
19 it means facilitation, it means training, it
20 means all these kinds of things. You also need a
21 body that's going to evaluate what's going on. I
22 believe in school level democracy as much as
23 anybody else, but I also know there's got to be
24 some kind of evaluative supervision to make sure
25 that what is coming out of this process is real
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2 and solid and that's something you should
3 advocate for and you should fight for. So
4 somebody has to evaluate these kinds of projects
5 if they're going to go on at schools and see that
6 the results really reflect the dimension that
7 they need to reflect.
8 And then you need somebody to
9 synthesize what's coming from the school level
10 governance process, and put it into a form that
11 can be presented either to the central Board of
12 Education, the legislature, whatever the body is
13 that you have to relate to in order to get money
14 to be held accountable to report on what's
15 happening. In other words you need a mid-level
16 governing structure that performs very
17 substantial, important, substantive functions and
18 that is the message I'm trying to convey to you
19 ladies and gentlemen.
20 Whatever that structure is, look at
21 the question of function more than you look at
22 question of power. I don't -- as I sit here
23 today, we haven't thought enough whether it
24 should be an elected body, or it should be an
25 appointed body, whether it should be 50 percent
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2 parents or any percent this one or that one.
3 Before you get to all those questions, I'm asking
4 to you consider what is this body going to do and
5 in our model, we think it's got very important
6 functions, that a central board, I was going to
7 say on Livingston Street, I guess coming from
8 Tweed or whereever it's coming from now, they
9 can't have there fingers on the pulse of the
10 communities. They can't do this kind of
11 oversight evaluation coordination and advocacy
12 for the community. It's got to be a body that
13 relates to the community, but not one that
14 relates just in some kind of token way to have X
15 number of people representing each school and
16 all.
17 Look at functions look at substance
18 of it and we really have a wonderful opportunity
19 here. It's a clean slate, it's an opportunity to
20 look at what really would will make a difference
21 for kids and schools and that's why I wanted to
22 put before you our model. It's not the only one,
23 but what it does exemplify is, the important of
24 particular functions that a mid-level governance
25 body should be carrying out. Thank you.
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2 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Thank you Mr.
3 Rebel. Questions? Virginia Kee.
4 MS. KEE: Hi. I'm interested in the
5 fiscal equity part of the -- it wasn't covered,
6 but I'm very curious. Would you say that minority
7 schools in very poor areas should have different
8 budget than perhaps schools in a well to do
9 middle class area, I mean this is a difficult
10 question, I understand it, but as a teacher going
11 back, sometimes you saw a student with a great
12 deal of need, so the attention is paid more, so
13 being equal is not always fair. So how would you
14 know look at that from a budgetary point of view.
15 MR. REBELL: Well you have raised a
16 very substantial question that I guess deals with
17 another aspect of our operation, but it's aspect
18 that I'm very concerned about, so I will
19 definitely answer that question. Our position is
20 that every student in the state should get the
21 resources they need to meet the regency learning
22 standards. Now, what does that mean? How many
23 dollars for middle class district for a minority
24 district, we don't have the answers to that yet,
25 but we're going to have the answer in about 13
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2 and a half months. And the reason I can be so
3 precise is, we just announced 2 weeks ago that
4 our organization together with the State School
5 Board's Association, the business council and 25
6 other groups, have engaged the services of a team
7 of 10 experts who form an independent panel to
8 cost out what inadequate education in New York
9 State really cost.
10 This was the first principal that
11 Justice DeGrasse put in his order. The treshold
12 task he said, was to have a determination of the
13 actual cost of providing a sound basic education.
14 And we have been asking the legislature and
15 governor for the last year and a half to carry
16 that out. The order was put on hold during the
17 appeal. No real movement was made to do it. So
18 we managed to get a large foundation grant and we
19 brought in the leading experts throughout the
20 country, who have done in 12 other states. They
21 are going to look at what kids need in every
22 school.
23 And one of the really interesting
24 things about the New York adequacy study, as it's
25 called is, it is going to focus on exactly the
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2 kind of children you're talking about. In other
3 states they take generalized notions of education
4 and what it means across the board. Our team is
5 going to be looking specifically at what programs
6 you need for at risk kids, for ELL kids, and for
7 kids with disabilities and what those concrete
8 programs cost. So it's not going to be an
9 abstraction, many of the studies will say, we'll
10 add 15 percent for at risk kids in all. We're
11 not adding percentages we're actually going to be
12 going around the state and holding community
13 forums to get a lot of input about what the
14 nature of these programs we're costing out should
15 be.
16 So therefore, I taken more minutes
17 than I should have, but my answer to your
18 question is when this report comes out in January
19 2004, it's going to tell us how many dollars kids
20 need in New York City, in Buffalo, in Plattsburg,
21 in every school district in the state in concrete
22 terms.
23 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Robin Brown.
24 MS. BROWN: If you had to start --
25 you know that there needs to be an engagement of
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2 the public, in terms of looking at public schools
3 and children doing well in schools. If you had to
4 start somewhere first, where would you start
5 first, would you start at the community within
6 the community, would you start within the school,
7 would you start within the central board process
8 to move this thing forward, where would you start
9 first?
10 MR. REBELL: I definitely think you
11 have to start within the school. I mean, that's
12 where people's hearts and soles are and that's
13 where the important educational function of
14 public engagement is. For a school to work as
15 all of us know, I think, you somehow have to
16 create a school community. And you can only
17 create a school community if parents feel
18 welcome, if they feel part of it, if they feel
19 they can work with teachers, they can work with
20 the principal, so you know, mandating public
21 engagement from on high and I don't mean to be
22 here revering, but having 5,000 people suddenly
23 come to meetings this week and next week it's
24 better than nothing but it's not where I think
25 it should really start.
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2 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Roger Green.
3 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: First of all,
4 the great work that you have been doing is
5 primarily related to insuring that schools in the
6 high needs districts receive their fair share.
7 One of the challenges I think that we went
8 through, even when we were doing -- looking at
9 school governance, was the issue of transparency
10 and funding, because I think that whole system is
11 accountable also. The whole issue around the
12 maintenance of effort was in part related to fact
13 that we didn't know how much money the city was
14 using for -- that was supposed to be appropriated
15 for the school system, was being used for other
16 purposes. As an example, how much money was
17 coming from the federal government for the school
18 district, how much was coming from the estate
19 state and how much was the city really
20 contributing. Is there something that we should
21 be looking at in terms of the local school
22 systems to empower parents and community, empower
23 citizens so that they can review and hold
24 accountable the system, so that these local
25 school buildings can receive the kind of
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2 resources that they really need, is there
3 something that we ought to be looking at in terms
4 of that?
5 MR. REBELL: Well, I would pick up
6 Robin's theme here. I think we should be looking
7 at public engagement techniques that are serious
8 and that really work and that give parents the
9 sense of empowerment, but not just the sense,
10 that gives them the substance of really taking
11 part in decision making. And you know, we've
12 been doing our kind of public engagement for the
13 last five or six years, connected with our
14 lawsuit, and I must say when we started it was a
15 theory. We went around the state when we began
16 preparing for our trial and our big
17 constitutional issue is, that every child is
18 entitled a sound basic education. But the court
19 kind of left open what that is and it's critical
20 to fill it in, what it is, because what it is is
21 going to drive the dollars and everything else.
22 We began, assuming we'd have the
23 lawyer's and the legal experts and the
24 educational experts sit around and come up with a
25 definition and present it to the court. But
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2 instead we went around the city first and then
3 around the state and asked people to give us
4 their input. I tell you it was powerful. When we
5 got to the question of remedies, what we should
6 ask the court for, rather than brain storming
7 with attorney's and all, we had meetings where
8 we gave people a real chance to bite their teeth
9 in this. You give them some background, you give
10 them some understanding and then you let them
11 really talk in a very serious way about what is
12 meaningful to them and how they relate to these
13 bigger issue. And there is a wisdom in
14 democratic participation that I am amazed every
15 time we do it. You tap into that and you get
16 your commitment to democracy reinspired all over
17 again.
18 Unfortunately we never -- we very
19 rarely set up the circumstances for that kind of
20 thing. I think that's what we got to do at the
21 school level. And I think this is an opportunity
22 through this governance mod model, that's what
23 I'm trying to communicate as well as I can. This
24 is an opportunity to set up a structure that is
25 going to support that and support it in a very
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2 meaningful way. We should not be as concerned,
3 in my opinion, about how many parents are being
4 represented on whatever the district level body
5 is, but how well that body is going to support
6 real parent involvement and real community
7 building at the school level. That's the key
8 function.
9 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: The next to last
10 paragraph, the last sentence you say these groups
11 will need also some real authority and autonomy
12 in order to challenge what is in the interest of
13 what ought to be. I think you're right, the
14 question is what ought to be. There's a
15 consensus I think today that one of the things
16 that a new structure that these new structures
17 should focus on, is the issue that you yourself
18 is concerned with, which is the budget. Is it
19 your sense also that if in fact there's a new
20 structure that replaces the current local boards,
21 that at the very least, there ought to be some
22 review, if not some role in shaping the budget.
23 MR. REBELL: Oh definitely, and the
24 methodology that we're describing in these
25 documents that I put before you, says that the
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2 sense of how much is needed and what it's needed
3 for should begin at the school level. Now that's
4 not the final word that's why I'm saying you need
5 a district level body that can assess this
6 information that's coming from all the schools,
7 but you know the essence of what Justice DeGrasse
8 found was wrong with the current funding system,
9 is that it was not related to need at all. It
10 was three men in a room, the governor and the
11 legislative leaders, getting together whenever
12 it's budget time and hacking out what percentage
13 New York City will get this year and what
14 percentage Long Island and then running it all
15 through the computers.
16 You need the exact opposite if we're
17 going to be serious about education and be
18 serious about parent involvement, which is the
19 people who know how the shoe fits, should be the
20 ones telling us what size it should be. So I
21 think you have to begin a budget process by
22 having the kind of, we had this school inventory,
23 there are other ways of doing this, we had
24 parents, teachers, principals going around the
25 school, talking with people saying, you know, if
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2 we really had adequate funding, what do we need?
3 And you know, you got into class sizes, you got
4 into materials you got into all kinds of other
5 things. But it was really felt in a serious way
6 and it was directly related to solid educational
7 plans and commitments people would make to use
8 that money well.
9 And if it comes up from the school
10 that way and then is assess and put together at
11 district level and presented at the central
12 level, then you've got an adequate budget that's
13 based on real need, that's coming from the people
14 who really know what's needed.
15 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: My last
16 question, would this also -- could this also
17 include issues of building aid?
18 MR. REBELL: Oh definitely.
19 Although I must say that is a very complicated
20 issue as you know, and we think it needs a lot of
21 serious attention. We haven't been able to focus
22 on that yet, but what we'd like to do is start it
23 with the operational budget, come up with some
24 tentative fairer system for building aid and then
25 really focus on a substantial reform of the whole
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2 building aid situation. The building aid, yes,
3 it should be related to educational need not
4 abstract formulas again.
5 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Rivera then
6 Mr. Clayton.
7 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: You indicated
8 a two tier, you basically, for lack of a better
9 term, decentralized it, made a lot of the
10 decisions at the school level and then you
11 developed -- you indicated that there is a tier
12 that kind of evaluates, that makes decisions on
13 accountability, which I would imagine requires
14 different skills than the first tier, the
15 community based tier. How would you envision the
16 second tier being selected, would you imagine an
17 election, would you imagine an appointment, would
18 you imagine a hiring out of that tier, you know
19 that that tier be RFP'd out in some way or
20 fashion, how do you see that second tier being
21 selected?
22 MR. REBELL: Well I see it being
23 some kind of political authority figure not
24 something that can be done purely by an RFP
25 outside consultant although the body that was
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2 doing this presumably could engage the services
3 of some consultants for some of these things. To
4 be honest, we haven't thought through those
5 specifics, and what wanted to do today was
6 emphasize this function and leave in your very
7 capable hands, with all the other people that are
8 going to testify on the pros and cons of election
9 and appointment and all the rest. Our position
10 at this point is that it's important that these
11 functions get carried out and there may be a
12 range of ways that they can be carried out but
13 I'm just emphasizing the point that, I think you
14 should start the analysis with what are the
15 functions that we need this body to do. And
16 then get into the questions of whether it's best
17 done by appoint these elected people, how many,
18 where they're coming from et cetera.
19 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Clayton.
20 MR. CLAYTON: How you doing mike?
21 MR. REBELL: Very well.
22 MR. CLAYTON: Okay, so it's my
23 understanding that your saying that these body
24 should be district-wide bodies, if I'm clear? And
25 that they should have real and meaningful
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2 functions?
3 MR. REBELL: Definitely.
4 MR. CLAYTON: And the final point
5 is that central must be, not should be, but
6 central must be responsive to these district wide
7 bodies?
8 MR. REBELL: No doubt. I guess one
9 of the other sub texts of what I'm saying here,
10 and I'll be very clear about it, because I think
11 you're understanding me. We know there's a lot
12 of thinking going on down at Tweed and various
13 consultants offices and there's going to be a new
14 plan coming out of the Department of Education
15 very soon. I am fearful that that plan is going
16 to be very heavily centralized. I don't want to,
17 you know, challenge something that doesn't exist
18 yet, but I am saying that if certain people are
19 going to advocate a very heavily centralized
20 approach to education in a city of 1.1 million
21 students, I don't think it will work and I do see
22 that whatever entity comes in to take the place
23 of the current community school boards has to
24 have real authority, yes.
25 MR. CLAYTON: Okay, thank you I
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2 understand.
3 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Before I thank
4 you and excuse you let me just -- I was getting
5 a slightly different jest of your thinking,
6 understanding that you don't have a detailed
7 proposal, then I heard your response to
8 Mr. Clayton and Mr. Rivera and I'm a little
9 confused but let me just tell you what I was
10 getting out of your recommendations.
11 That the locust of decision making
12 and authority to the extent that there is
13 authority, ought to be at the most local level,
14 the school. And that the function, you use that
15 word several times, and I think advisedly, the
16 function of the district entity should be to
17 facilitate, perhaps coordinate, facilitate, help
18 these schools and perhaps the school leadership
19 teams or whatever it might be, but to help the
20 schools make the right school based decisions or
21 help the schools to be in a position to advocate
22 for itself, for the needs of it's own school.
23 And that I was getting the feeling that it wasn't
24 so much that there ought to be -- in your view,
25 that there ought to be decision making at the
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2 district level, but rather the district ought to
3 be coordinating, helping, facilitating, maybe
4 evaluating, reviewing the work that's done at the
5 school site, the school level, is that a correct
6 interpretation?
7 MR. REBELL: I think, yes, you do
8 have a perceptive understanding of what I was
9 saying. In addition to facilitate and
10 coordinating however, to make this meaningful, if
11 let's say you got 20 schools in the district and
12 they've all got these budgetary proposals that
13 have come up through whatever school leadership
14 team or whatever the mechanism is, somebody does
15 have to put them together and putting them
16 together means more than just adding up the sum
17 of the part, assessing them evaluating them. And
18 then once that district budget is put together.
19 Somebody's got to advocate for it before the
20 central authorities and before the state
21 legislature, however it's set up. So, I don't --
22 we haven't thought through whether we're saying
23 it should be more or less power than community
24 school boards had in 1996 or whatever, but it
25 needs to be sufficient authority, that it's a
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2 respected body and whatever they come up with is
3 not just a paper exercise.
4 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Okay, I think I
5 understand it. Mr. Rebel we thank you very much
6 for your testimony and for your dare I say,
7 nearly legendary work already on behalf of the
8 school children of New York City. Thank you very
9 much.
10 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Next we have
11 Roni Wattman, Education Advocate Community School
12 Board 3.
13 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: I should just
14 make mention the fact that we were remised
15 earlier on that Pennelope Kreitzer joined us some
16 time ago but we didn't introduce you. Thank you
17 Pennelope.
18 MS. WATTMAN. Just following
19 Mr. Rebell is an honor. I truthfully having sat
20 here all day and listened, my mind is so full of
21 thoughts, that I'm not sure what can come out of
22 it. It needs time to settle to the bottom. But
23 I'm going to start with one thing. Ms. Thomson
24 and Mr. Sanders, the issue about whether the
25 public will have an opportunity to provide
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2 reactions to the -- your recommendations, this
3 group's recommendations before they go for
4 processing to the legislators, I appreciate the
5 difficulties so that's a given. Still, there is
6 a lot of cynicism, around this entire thing.
7 Partially because of having had to run
8 (Inaudible.) Partly I guess because of what's
9 happening at central that it all gets mixed
10 together. And the response that we can go to our
11 legislators once it comes out does not -- I
12 respect you and I have a great opinion of you,
13 but I must tell you, it does not hold water it
14 adds to the cynicism. So I need to say it. You
15 do what you need to do, but I sat up there and
16 tortured myself of whether I should say it or
17 not, so I did.
18 Now, I have to make one admission
19 immediately. I am now nor I have I ever been a
20 parent, nor will I ever be I parent. And I have
21 to say that because the message I'm getting is I
22 don't count. Now I've spent most -- more than
23 half of my life teaching other people's children,
24 advocating for better schools, when I was in the
25 school system I even called up to the high school
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2 superintendent and yelled at her about something,
3 because I was calling with my head as an
4 advocate, and I could do that. So please
5 remember us. There are many of us out there and
6 this is not in my testimony. This is something I
7 just feel I need to say.
8 There are two thirds of population
9 of New York City do not have children in any one
10 school. That doesn't mean that that entire two
11 thirds doesn't care. Many of them attended the
12 New York City public schools and have good
13 memories. Many of them have their children
14 attended the public schools and they had good
15 memories for that. We can reach out to them. We
16 need to reach out to them. This is a very tough
17 time for the city schools. It is not going to
18 get better before it gets worse. What with the
19 cuts, what with the cast and confusion caused
20 changing models and this's and that's. It's
21 tough. Schools need stability to really be able
22 to function, that's one of the things they need
23 and this is not a stable time. It's no one's
24 fault. But please, we need to reach out to
25 everyone that can help us protect the schools.
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2 That piece of my life.
3 I'm a member of several of the
4 organizations that's already spoken here. What I
5 did was start looking at what has been happening
6 elsewhere. And I believe that all of you and
7 I've been watching you all very carefully, are
8 really listening, are really caring, and if the
9 political situation allowed, I think you'll do a
10 decent enough job. But politics will get
11 involved. Those three men in the room are always
12 there. First, as you seek to put into law the
13 apparatus that will enable teachers and students
14 to successfully navigate the road to excellence
15 in education. You see I put teachers and students
16 together, because that's -- if that doesn't work
17 it's not there. Please consciously keep focus on
18 the youngsters. Parents are very important
19 people, but the most important people in the
20 school system are the youngsters. So please keep
21 that as your focus.
22 This is going to be difficult,
23 because you're going to have to make compromises
24 and all the rest of that, so again say keep your
25 eyes on the children and the young adults that
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2 are going to have to go through whatever the
3 maze, and it will be a maze, because it has to
4 be, that you instruct. The adults will find
5 their way, the kids first need help. All right.
6 The next thing is governance in and
7 of itself will not provide the silver bullet
8 we're all looking for that will improve the
9 schools and make all of them stop -- High Schools
10 of Science or Stuyvesant or something like that.
11 Governance in itself will not do it. Everybody
12 goes back to Chicago. Well it depends on what
13 piece of Chicago you went back to, what year was
14 it. I remember the beginning, and I remember --
15 I kept a little bit of an eye on it. Chicago
16 was not successful for the school children.
17 There were some improvement in some schools, yes.
18 Who said they wouldn't have been there any how.
19 I have to see what schools they are and what
20 neighborhood they're in, all right, to be able
21 to answer that. I don't have that information.
22 Right now, one third of the schools
23 have improved, one third are almost improved,
24 it's near it somewhere, and the others are dead
25 in the water. And that's a quote from the
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2 Harvard Education Letter. And that's after
3 almost 15 years of playing around with
4 governance. I say this to you not to (inaudible)
5 what you are about to do. But let's look this in
6 the eye. And finally, I have been watching this
7 and I'm so glad to get this copy of the October
8 Harvard Education Letter. Because the first line
9 in it's second article is -- it's about
10 instruction stupid. I will send in testimony and
11 I'll attach the article.
12 Being on the board of a district
13 that did improve, not completely, I said improve.
14 I didn't say get great. I was on the board back
15 in the '80s when we hired a new superintendent,
16 Andy Klein. At that time, district 3, when
17 compared to all other districts in the City of
18 New York, was at the bottom. The very bottom.
19 There was no one lower than us in reading and I
20 think there might have been one district lower
21 than us in math. That's how bad it was. Now I
22 only served one term because around the
23 legislation, I was still teaching. But Andy
24 brought in someone who focused only on education,
25 and only on instruction and curriculum. And who
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2 was remarkably focused. We are now -- the
3 district is now in the upper one third of the
4 city. You know why that happened? It's because
5 Pat Romanandetto focused solidly and completely
6 on instruction. That's how, what, and why.
7 Now the neighborhood, part of the
8 neighborhood gentrafied. That's true and that's
9 a factor. There are other factors. But also
10 having been on the planning board, I remember
11 getting phone numbers, when I wasn't on the
12 school board, I remember getting phone numbers
13 saying this is the address. Is it in district --
14 Is this in P.S. 87's district? This is the
15 address is it in P.S. 9's district? Therefore,
16 the gentrafication was also influenced by the
17 changing nature of the schools. I just want that
18 clear too. Now I have to get to what the meat of
19 this is. Good instruction is not free. It is
20 instead quite expensive. And cutting costs on it
21 doesn't make it better. It makes it much more
22 difficult to deliver. Remember, I was a teacher
23 during the '70s, I was one person away from being
24 laid off. We've gone in various up's and down's
25 financially and we all bought our own stuff and
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2 still do. I still have the copier at home I
3 bought at some point, because I couldn't get copy
4 -- copy stuff anywhere, but -- and we're going
5 through it again so that make it particularly
6 difficult. But you got to remember this.
7 Successful instruction demands
8 highly trained teachers. I think most people
9 agree with that now. That's an expense. Because
10 you can train your teachers and they can walk out
11 if they're going to have a hard time. There are
12 very few people that are going to sit around, if
13 they can get more money elsewhere and work harder
14 over here. After a while, you wear out. We need
15 to be able to maintain those people. Appropriate
16 and sufficient materials and equipment. I think
17 -- okay maybe parents can buy pencils some things
18 like that, but the real equipment, the science
19 labs, the computers now, the TV's, the whatever
20 it is, the books, but books now you know you
21 don't get one if you really doing a job you don't
22 get one textbook and everybody's using it. You
23 need a variety. For each class. And folks,
24 those books are very expensive. As much as I've
25 laid out of my pocket, I never bought a class a
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2 set of text books. I copied.
3 For many youngsters more time is
4 necessary. People do not all learn at the same
5 speed. The time may be after school. It may be
6 during the summer. It may be whenever one can
7 find the time. It is not because this one is
8 stupid and this is one is bright. People do not
9 learn at the same speed. That's just one of the
10 things that if you go into learning styles. So
11 they will need a little extra, money and
12 resources, but the pay back later on is going to
13 be great. A decent -- I have here we need
14 tutoring and smaller classes, Leonie where are
15 you? Smaller classes.
16 I had an occasion early on in my
17 career to be part of the first drop out program
18 in New York City, maybe in the country. This was
19 in the early 60's. I'm not sure what we were
20 doing trying to keep them from dropping out or
21 just trying to give them something rather -- it
22 just hadn't been thought out. But it was a
23 wonderful experience for me and I hope for my
24 boys. We had five teachers -- we had four
25 teachers, 45 boys, a guidance counselor. We had
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2 15 guys to a class. That made a family. My
3 class became a family. I really was a very naive
4 new teacher. They supported each other and they
5 supported me and I supported them and they had --
6 I don't know what academically they gained out
7 of me, there scores went up two years, not
8 because I teach reading but because I made them
9 do push ups at the back of the room before the
10 test.
11 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: I'm going to have
12 to ask to you begin to conclude thank you very
13 much.
14 MS. WATTMAN: I am getting to the
15 conclusion.
16 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Thank you very
17 much.
18 MS. WATTMAN: And here it is, school
19 reform is bound to stall without significant
20 investment in the development of teachers and
21 school leaders. It's bound to stall without
22 significant investment in staff development, in
23 other words. District 2 started that and showed
24 the world the way to go. District 3 copied it and
25 it worked for both. I really really beg of you,
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2 when you come back and however you come up with
3 this and then we go back and sitting in our seats
4 again, remember to keep fighting for money for
5 these schools. Because you have more power than
6 I do and belong to about five advocacy groups.
7 So please, we need -- whatever you do I know
8 you're going to do the best you can. But don't
9 just go away after that.
10 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Thank you very
11 much.
12 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Elizabeth
13 Sullivan, Right to Education Project Coordinator
14 of the Center for Economic and Social Rights.
15 MS. SULLIVAN: Thank you for this
16 opportunity, I submitted some written testimony
17 that's longer and more detailed but I'm going to
18 cut a lot of it, so I'll be brief. My name
19 Elizabeth Sullivan and as you said, I'm the
20 Program Coordinator in charge of right to
21 education issues at the Center for Economic and
22 Social Rights an international Human Rights
23 organization.
24 Each and every child in the New York
25 City school system has a fundamental human right
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2 to education. Reflected not only in our state
3 constitution but also in widely accepted
4 international and regional human rights
5 instruments. The human right to education
6 obligates government actors at all levels, to
7 ensure that education is available, accessible
8 and appropriate for all children, as well as
9 adaptable to their educational needs. The human
10 rights principals, particular relevance to this
11 Task Force, however, relate to government
12 accountability to rights holders. These include,
13 the right to participation, the right to an
14 effective remedy for violations of the right to
15 education and the obligations to monitor the
16 right to education.
17 The right to participation is a
18 critical component for insuring accountability by
19 government actors to rights holders and society.
20 Despite existing policies who supposed purpose is
21 to ensure participation, our project has
22 documented a systematic failure by the municipal
23 government to ensure effective participation.
24 Our documentation included interviews with a
25 wide range of stake holders including parents,
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2 community advocates, policy experts and educators
3 themselves. Indeed, this particular hearing I
4 respectfully note, with so little advanced notice
5 or adequate dissemination of hearing dates and
6 times as has been mentioned already is a part of
7 this larger problem. And the circumstances of
8 these hearings are far from unique. Parents and
9 community members, that we have spoken to,
10 routinely face barriers when trying to access
11 information and participate in education
12 decisions.
13 The simple tasks of obtaining a
14 comprehensive education plan, sibilus or
15 classroom work plan for schools, are exceedingly
16 difficult for many parents, and school
17 leadership teams and community school boards, in
18 their current capacity have not been able to
19 address the problem. This Task Force has the
20 historic opportunity to change this destructive
21 pattern and create a effective mechanism, which
22 connects the input and concerns of parents and
23 communities to the decision making processes of
24 government. Unnecessary precondition for
25 succeeding, is ensure that the government
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2 structure itself that will replace the community
3 school boards is participatory itself and that it
4 includes all key stakeholders including parents,
5 students themselves, community members and
6 educators. It is has to be transparent,
7 accessible and accountable to communities. . If
8 these preconditions are not met the structure
9 will merely replicate and reflect the broader
10 problem that exists.
11 Properly constructed, it can serve
12 key functions to address participation on a
13 broader level. And here are five of those
14 function that we think are very important. One,
15 ensure the participation of all stakeholders at
16 all levels of governance, by serving as a liaison
17 at the school, district and city-wide levels.
18 Ensure that public forum for all stakeholders to
19 voice their concerns and provide input, such as
20 organizing regular public meetings or hearings
21 around specific issues and ensuring that they are
22 practically accessible so that they are located,
23 at times of the day in places that are accessible
24 for parents and that there's necessary
25 translation services, other things like that.
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2 Ensure transparency in and provide
3 public access to information, such as city level
4 district and school budgets, comprehensive
5 education plans, data on school and student
6 performance curriculum and class syllabi. Four,
7 ensure that participation in key decision making
8 processes is available, such as setting goals for
9 education, approving and developing budgets,
10 approving comprehensive education plans and
11 conducting evaluations of principals and
12 superintendents. This can be done by giving this
13 governance structure a direct decision making
14 power over certain decisions, by giving them
15 power to evaluate the performance of other people
16 that make those decisions or by granting them a
17 Veto power over other key decisions.
18 Whatever mechanism you chose human
19 right standards mandates the participation be
20 meaningful and that the views of parents,
21 community members and society have a real impact
22 on the decisions. Five, ensure that
23 participation is informed and the capacity of
24 stakeholders is developed. And this is something
25 that a lot of people have talked about earlier.
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2 The need to provide quality and easy to
3 understand trainings for interpreting budgets,
4 strategic plans and curriculum, so that the
5 people who sit on the governance body are able to
6 do their jobs effectively.
7 The new governance structure can
8 either carry out these functions itself or it can
9 serve as liaison to making sure that people have
10 access to these functions carried out by other
11 bodies. At a minimum the government structure
12 should be responsible for ensuring that these
13 mechanisms for participation are identified and
14 that they begin to function effectively. In
15 order to succeed in this effort, this Task Force
16 should express strong political will to get
17 beyond tokenistic efforts and allow
18 participation in a way that redistribute social
19 power more democratically in the education
20 system.
21 There are a couple other areas of
22 human rights standards that might be interesting
23 for to you consider when you're thinking about
24 the roles and responsibilities of this new
25 governance structure, and one is the right to a
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2 remedy in the case of violations. It's a right
3 that we don't feel is adequately dealt with the
4 in the school system as it exists today so
5 because we're creating a new part of it, it might
6 be an interesting place to see how this new body
7 can help address that. Under human rights
8 standards, the government is obligated to ensure
9 any group or individual has access to an
10 effective remedy for violations of their rights.
11 This remedy can take many different forms,
12 including a guarantee that the violation will not
13 be repeated in the future.
14 Under the current New York City
15 school system, remedies are inadequate. For
16 example, federal law No Child Left Behind Act,
17 even if it were to function effectively, it
18 provides transfer to another school as the
19 remedy. But this remedy is a loser in relation
20 to any large number of students, as there simply
21 aren't enough slots in adequate schools for all
22 the students who need the chance to benefit. This
23 Task Force has the opportunity to explore ways in
24 which the new governance structure can contribute
25 to this. A third human rights principle to think
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2 about is monitoring. Under human rights standards
3 the government is obligated to monitor the
4 fulfillment of the right to education.
5 In order to be effective it must
6 monitor the implementation of policies and
7 programs, the performance of administrators
8 educators, spending patterns and other practices
9 relevant to the right. Monitoring in New York
10 City school system is for the most part
11 ineffective. Our human rights investigation has
12 identified that many violations of the right to
13 education stem from a failure to implement
14 seemingly good good policies that exist and a
15 lack of monitoring that they are implemented in
16 the correct way. This new governance structure
17 can also help to fulfill this role either by
18 being given resources and access to information
19 to perform some of these monitoring functions
20 itself, or to make sure that other bodies charge
21 with monitoring are accountable to communities
22 and parents.
23 As a final note I would just like to
24 request, as others have that some preliminary or
25 early notice of final recommendations from this
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2 committee are made available to the public, so
3 there can be some feedback before they're sent
4 Governor and legislature. Someone had asked a
5 question about Website access, and I think it is
6 very useful, because not only for parents to have
7 access themselves, it's useful but also for
8 community groups that have Websites and access to
9 information they can then distribute that
10 information to parents that don't have access to
11 the internet. So I think it's a very useful
12 tool. Thank you.
13 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Elizabeth
14 Sullivan, we thank you very much for your very
15 thoughtful testimony and for the work that the
16 Center for Economic and Social Rights does. I'm
17 very familiar with your organization and it does
18 excellent work and I think your testimony was
19 illustrative of that fact, thank you very much.
20 MS. SULLIVAN: Thank you.
21 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Jacqueline
22 Kamin, Manhattan representative on the Panel for
23 Education Policy.
24 MS. KAMIN: Good afternoon everyone,
25 I want to be real brief this afternoon, we all
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2 want to go, I would like very much if I can have
3 your indulge institutes to submit written
4 testimony later that would give some comments at
5 greater length. Thanks.
6 I want to start of by acknowledging
7 the importance of this effort and the importance
8 of your commitment and thank you very much from
9 somebody who has a child in the public school
10 system. What you're doing is going to set the
11 pace for the schools for a while and it's
12 terrific that you're giving this effort to it. I
13 know that with the people on this panel, the
14 sophistication of the folks here, that you are
15 certainly leveraging as much input as you
16 possibly can and I would hope that that would
17 include working very closely with the
18 chancellor's people, who are involved in the
19 children first effort.
20 We have now several high profile
21 reviews going on of the school system and one
22 hopes that all the best minds will get together
23 on the same page, for the sake of the children.
24 I'm particularly concerned that the efforts of
25 everyone be focused on one thing and one thing
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2 alone and that is teaching and learning of our
3 children in this city.
4 We're faced at this point with, as
5 everybody knows, a really dismal budget and I
6 would like to think that every option that comes
7 across your table is reviewed from the standpoint
8 of what kind of bang for the buck to do we get
9 for the children of this city. So that at this
10 point community boards are being reviewed and I
11 think that they can stand the scrutiny of asking
12 for the amount of resources both in terms of
13 developing community boards, holding the
14 elections, supporting the community boards once
15 they're there. What kind of number does this
16 cost the city every year? And it might be a
17 terrific value. I just don't know. I haven't
18 seen anybody put a number on that effort. We've
19 talked about what community boards do and
20 unfortunately it's like any endeavor in this huge
21 city. Some of them are very good and people
22 appreciate them and people applaud them and in
23 others they're the just not.
24 Well, you have the very very
25 difficult task of figuring out. Is the bang
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2 worth the buck. I can't help but think sometime
3 about the amount of effort that has been put into
4 reaching out to parents to get them involved in
5 formal parental participation and in formal
6 school mechanisms. Whether we would not perhaps
7 have found a greater enhancement for our schools,
8 if we put that amount of effort into telling
9 parents how important it is to support the
10 particular curriculum of their school or get them
11 adequate communication about curriculum or
12 communicate to them the importance of good
13 nutrition, of sending the child to school with a
14 good breakfast.
15 I think about the amount of money
16 that latest teachers contract involved with
17 giving an increase to the teachers, with at
18 least, according to the reduced -- the simplicity
19 of the newspapers, the give back was the extra 10
20 minutes of teacher time per day. Well if every
21 parent could get there child to school on time,
22 you would get a lot more than that, and I don't
23 mean to be criticizing how parents bring up their
24 children, I don't get to my children to school on
25 time every day, but darn, it would be a good
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2 thing if I did and think we can -- at this point
3 we can really look at what we're doing in the
4 city, all of us, and how we can pull together and
5 how we can do things for nothing, that would make
6 a huge difference in the school system.
7 I do believe that the community
8 school boards where there functions very well,
9 there main functions pretty much are to provide a
10 public forum for parents and community members.
11 What has been expressed by a number of people at
12 this table is, that we don't have a place for
13 other people other than parents other than the
14 community boards for community members to come in
15 and express themselves and offer their help.
16 Offer their sophistication. In many cases they
17 have a lot to give. They are taxpayers. They
18 certainly are involved with seeing the future of
19 our community grow up around them and I think
20 that that whatever is created should have some
21 opening for people, not only who are parents, but
22 also community members.
23 Another function is to review
24 education policy and planning. Must be
25 maintained. Another function is to approve the
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2 budget. Clearly these are functions that the
3 school boards have done with varying degrees of
4 success, in some cases some school boards have
5 actually gone to war with superintendents. I
6 can't believe that's good for the children and I
7 don't know that whatever you come up with that
8 you want to set in place a structure that permits
9 that to happen. Especially in this day and age
10 when we are really trying to squeeze every last
11 bit out of ever every dollar that comes into the
12 education budget. If school boards were to
13 dissolve tomorrow, what would we do to cover
14 these functions.
15 I want to suggest to you that we
16 have in place right some bodies that could, to
17 some extent, be looked to to offer public forum.
18 One is the president's council of each district.
19 However the districts are re-configured, there
20 should be some mechanism that is analogous to the
21 president council. I would suggest that if that
22 group is looked to to provide some sort of review
23 of district policy, that might be something like
24 a quarterly, or a tri-annual public meeting with
25 the superintendent to review educational policy
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2 and budget. If that happen, I would suggest that
3 there should be an additional advisory group made
4 up of community members or appointees of the
5 politicians perhaps, they are plenty of ways you
6 could structure to reach out to the community and
7 pull in other thoughts.
8 One thing that happens unfortunately
9 in the school system, is that sometimes the
10 parents who are elected to school bodies are
11 distrusted by many other parents. They think
12 sometimes that this is somebody whose just the
13 puppet of the principal. At other times the
14 person who is elected by the parents themselves,
15 that person will end up going to war with the
16 principal and that also doesn't benefit the
17 children in the school. So for these complicated
18 human interaction reasons, there really should be
19 at district level, if there is any sort of review
20 role on the part of a president's council, it
21 should be a larger but an expanded body that
22 should include some independent efforts by some
23 community members of some sort.
24 I would suggest that it's possible
25 that you might want to think about a borough
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2 level body that might not even be a separate
3 body. Perhaps it would simply be a meeting that
4 was convened with existing bodies. Each of the
5 borough has borough boards. There might be an
6 annual meeting with borough boards and the
7 president's council members or subdivision of the
8 chancellor's parent advisory counsel. There are
9 ways I'm just suggesting that we can perhaps
10 think of and draft to try to leverage existing
11 resources to minimize any extra levels of
12 bureaucracy that you might end up setting as
13 obstacles in the way of true school reform.
14 And I would like to think that if
15 the chancellor's children first people were to
16 reach out to every single person at this table,
17 they would get an amazing wealth of information
18 and guidance on their efforts. In terms of
19 leveraging more parents though to get in the
20 system, I would suggest to that tremendous
21 suggestion have been made just today in terms of
22 using transparency of information to reach out to
23 people that don't end up coming to meetings.
24 Plenty of people who have very responsible jobs
25 and who care about their children's schools are
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2 not going to be able to make all the public
3 meetings that you're going to have. There are
4 also, as has been just suggested by Ms. Sullivan,
5 community -- CBO's out there and advocacy groups
6 that will comb that internet for information and
7 will then digest it, and put it forward in a more
8 understandable way to parents and community
9 members.
10 There are members of the press who
11 are starving for information at this point, that
12 will get out information to parents in a totally
13 free way to the school system, of course they
14 don't always get it right, excuse me to any
15 member of the press who might be here, but the
16 point is by using the internet to put out
17 information about student achievement and about
18 the achievement of schools, some excellent
19 suggestions were made about adding to the
20 information that's already put out on the
21 Website, but more over putting out information on
22 the district levels that is more comprehensive.
23 At this point we don't see budget information on
24 the district level. And most districts -- it is
25 district by district decision and that is the
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2 most interesting and probative level to look at
3 if you're out of school. That would be
4 tremendous.
5 And finally, I guess, I'd just like
6 to say with the option of putting in something
7 later, that the main importance that we ought to
8 give is the focusing on how we can each maximize
9 the contribution we can make in whatever state we
10 find ourselves to teaching and learning in the
11 school system. And I'm sure that you will --
12 your efforts will do just that. Thanks very much
13 .
14 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Thank you very
15 much. Before I ask if there are any questions,
16 let me just remind the members we still have
17 seven more witnesses to go and I'm not sure our 4
18 o'clock end time is going to be met, but just
19 bare that in mind as you ask questions. Mr.
20 Clayton.
21 MR. CLAYTON: How are you doing
22 Jackie? I really don't have a question, I just
23 wanted to make the Task Force aware that you are
24 the borough representative, parent representative
25 that came out of the Task Force last year on
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2 mayoral control and we fought hard that parent
3 representation be a part of that new paradigm.
4 And you're the Manhattan representative and I
5 think you did a stellar job in representing,
6 today parents of the borough of Manhattan, I hope
7 you don't get in any trouble because the
8 chancellor said you're not suppose to speak out
9 publicly, so, but I --
10 MS. KAMIN: What's he going to do,
11 fire me?
12 MR. CLAYTON: I commend you, because
13 have you also been an advocate and you are
14 showing that today. Thank you Jackie.
15 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Robin Brown.
16 MS. BROWN: It's not really a
17 question, could you just explain to the panel,
18 more so, what president's council currently do?
19 MS. KAMIN: President's councils are
20 the group that meets monthly, of elected parent
21 association, Parent Teacher Association
22 Presidents. They meet at each district level
23 monthly to hear information from central about
24 school policies, to ask questions of their
25 superintendents and to network and help one
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2 another do their jobs as parent leaders. And one
3 person from that group sends a representative to
4 the Chancellor's Parent Advisory Council, that
5 Robin so ably chairs.
6 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Assemblyman
7 Green.
8 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: The -- trying to
9 look at the whole issue of possible (inaudible)
10 between parental representation on the central
11 board and empowering parents on the local board
12 level, and as it relates to issue of teaching and
13 instruction.
14 MS. KAMIN: You mean district level?
15 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: On the district
16 level, yes. How it might relate to the issue of
17 teaching and instruction, particularly with one
18 of the areas that you'll have some impact on
19 over, which is the teachers contract. Where
20 there is no -- and I'm a former teacher, you
21 know, so I want to put that up front before my
22 friends in the union beat up on me, but it's
23 pretty clear that there's a need for some changes
24 in the contract, but also in how we view the
25 contract. Because as much as folks talk about
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2 three men in a room in Albany, you know it's
3 basically been the same kind of approach with
4 respect to the approval of the teachers contract.
5 MS. KAMIN: Yes it is it has.
6 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: And there has
7 not been the kind of transparency that's needed
8 for parents to know how the changes in the
9 contract may impact on teaching and instruction
10 in a school building. And often site, as an
11 example, decisions that were made to create
12 mid-winter break as an example, that was done
13 overnight with no discussion with parents and how
14 that impacted upon parents. Parent had scurried
15 throughout the whole city to find places, safe
16 places and spaces for their children for a
17 two-week period.
18 Then the most recent example being,
19 when teachers who are authority figures in the
20 school building were taken out of the lunch room
21 assignments and hallway assignments and also in
22 some cases the homeroom assignments and how that
23 impacted on schools, and I know in my district,
24 where they had really begun turning the corner
25 with respect to issue of school safety and you
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2 know, things of that nature.
3 MS. KAMIN: Well, the --
4 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: So I'm using
5 that as an example, so the question becomes, in
6 the formulation of a new governance structure,
7 would it be possible to at least look at creating
8 some kind of transparency so that parents on the
9 local level could also have time to, at the very
10 least, review what may be agreements in teacher
11 contracts with the union before they're formally
12 ratified?
13 MS. KAMIN: Well, --
14 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: That is not to
15 say they have to Veto that process, but at least
16 have time to review it before, you know, there
17 is, you know --
18 MS. KAMIN: I think that -- I agree
19 with you that if parents had been involved in
20 prior teacher contracts we certainly wouldn't
21 have had circular 6, which was the administrative
22 duty section. There's no question that those
23 agreements would have looked differently,
24 however, just as a matter of realty testing,
25 collective bargaining in New York City has
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2 always been between the mayor and the union
3 leader sitting down across the table from one
4 another and I don't know how parents are going to
5 get into that, but you have more sophistication
6 politically than I do, so maybe you do.
7 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: I guess what I'm
8 saying is, is it possible that a process could be
9 established that allows for some kind of approval
10 process where this is at least reviewed by both
11 the central board, I'm sorry (inaudible), the
12 panel group, including yourself with parents who
13 are on there and then that this information is
14 also made more transparent to some local body so
15 -- which should be represented more by parents so
16 that they can weigh in and say, you know what,
17 this is not going to work. Because in fact, the
18 previous administration was responsible for
19 circular 6, and that was their political deal.
20 MS. KAMIN: Well, I think you will
21 probably see great changes. I don't know what
22 they are. I'm not privy to those discussions,
23 but this mayor certainly has staked his
24 reputation on doing, on reforming the school
25 system and I would expect that the union
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2 contracts that are coming up in the Spring, the
3 UFT contract and the CSA contract will be very
4 very differently configured than the last one,
5 and I don't know what kind of input any of us are
6 going to have, although I think that right now
7 with the children first effort, this is a very
8 good time for people to be bringing up those
9 issues. For parents to really be hammering home
10 those issues, I'm sure everybody knows about the
11 Website that is currently up asking for
12 information on the chancellor's Website,
13 nicenet.EDU. It's an extensive survey and it
14 really is very substantive and if you take the
15 time to fill it out. They are going to be
16 looking at it. They got all this great private
17 money to hire people to read it and synthesize
18 the comments about it. I would urge everybody to
19 be a part of that and for groups to raise their
20 voices and to the extent that I have opportunity
21 to raise mine, I will do so on those issues.
22 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Jackie Kamin, we
23 thank you very much.
24 MS. KAMIN: Thank you.
25 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Gwen Crenshaw,
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2 Member of Community School Board 6, she's not
3 here, Robert Press, Vice President of Parent's
4 Association.
5 MR. PRESS: My name is Robert Press
6 and what I had given is a blue paper, so it's
7 easy to find, with a 16 point resolution passed
8 by my local school board, number 10 in the Bronx.
9 The resolution provides a policy statement of
10 school board 10. It list items such as ,
11 identifying facilities for the next school year,
12 educational strategies, increasing student
13 performance, not ignoring the needs of
14 academically advanced students, zoning, special
15 education, professional development and other
16 ways of advocating for the children of school
17 district 10, while improving standardized test
18 scores. This is a lot to say about a school
19 board when the powers of a school board are
20 almost nothing. School board 10 however, should
21 be used as an example of a valid working school
22 board and be a model of what a school board
23 should be.
24 I currently am the district 10 rep
25 to the Chancellor's Parent Advisory Council.
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2 Where I sit on CPAC's Executive Committee as one
3 of it's officers. I am the past President of
4 school district 10's President's council of which
5 I still am an officer. And I am the past
6 President of my child school, where again I still
7 am an officer the P.A. I was Chair of the school
8 leadership team for the past two years but
9 refused to be part of the SLT this year, because
10 I believe that school leadership teams are
11 ineffective, wasteful, diminish parent power and
12 should be suspended during the current fiscal
13 crisis, which I've told the chancellor.
14 This is a belief that more parents
15 agree each and every school day and I even heard
16 more today say that. School leadership teams by
17 the way are no replacement for school boards
18 because school leadership team were set up wrong
19 with the full power base in the hands of the
20 school principal, not the team. We have seen in
21 the papers and on the TV that the Mayor and
22 Chancellor are shutting out the city council,
23 which now appears to be the only check on the new
24 Department of Education now that the central
25 board was disbanded by the legislature. Please
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2 don't do it at the district level by eliminating
3 school boards.
4 By the way, the new city education
5 panel is a good example of how mandating the the
6 word parent can be gotten around for political
7 allies to be appointed, with the exception of the
8 previous and two others, the Brooklyn and Bronx
9 reps appointed by those borough presidents are
10 fine examples of why open elections are needed.
11 Some suggestions, should you choose to keep
12 school boards in place for bettering school
13 boards and more voter input, would be to move
14 school board elections to November with state
15 legislation elections, which are every two year.
16 Mandate that they be on non-partisan lines as in
17 ballot proposals. You could set term limits for
18 school board members of six or eight years so we
19 don't have life long members for 30 years. To
20 fill any vacancies that occur on school boards
21 you might mandate that new members come from the
22 districts president council membership to ensure
23 more parent membership.
24 I'm sure there is more but I will
25 just say a few more things, since I had time to
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2 write a som more down, that eliminating school
3 boards is not the answer. School leadership teams
4 are not the replacement, because school
5 leadership teams are flawed even more than school
6 boards and are a waste of money. The answer is
7 to make school board better, such as school board
8 10 has done. The added comments that I have now
9 are that district 10 has 53 schools and over
10 45,000 students, and in talking to the P.A.
11 Presidents, many have of district 10's leadership
12 leadership team are not functioning well. Also
13 the leadership teams do not report back to the
14 rest of the parent body.
15 This is also in talk CPAC members, I
16 hear this city-wide. Also, a fact that you
17 should be known that school leadership team are
18 suppose to sign off on school budgets. This was
19 not done last year and is not being done this
20 year, there were no sign off on school budgets.
21 Now, as far as the law saying that school boards
22 are going out July 31, you can suggest to the
23 legislature, to keep school boards whereas they
24 can just change that law to say school boards
25 will continue it's existence and they will exist
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2 this way.
3 Finally, I ask you what did the
4 majority of school leadership teams spend there
5 budget on by the way, because I'll tell you one
6 year, my team bought microwave ovens and I'm sure
7 many others wasted the money that way too. Any
8 questions?
9 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Friedman.
10 MR. FRIEDMAN: Mr. Press, if you're
11 not advocating eliminating the school boards,
12 what reforms would you make to current school
13 boards, what powers might you change in the
14 current school board?
15 MR. PRESS: Well, we had district
16 budget hearings, which I believe have been
17 eliminated, two years ago when our superintendent
18 had our budget director present the budget, I
19 asked the stupid question at the time, which
20 people thought, I said gee, do you have do we
21 have an inventory of our personnel, do we know
22 what teachers we have, what paraprofessionals,
23 what staff workers we have and I was told no we
24 have no such inventory. I believe that school
25 districts should have an inventory of the people
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2 that are working in the district. You know, so
3 some budgetary controls by a school board is
4 necessary, I reveal and they need to be a check
5 on the superintendent.
6 Not to be an adversary of the
7 superintendent, but a check on the
8 superintendent. Our school board is doing that
9 role. We have a problem now with the new math
10 program that's being instituted, the fuzzy math.
11 And our school board believes and many parents
12 agree with them that is not an answer for all
13 students. It may work with students who have
14 problem with math, but when students are advanced
15 they just get bored in this new fuzzy math. And
16 they are fighting our superintendent
17 unfortunately and the superintendent has changed
18 the policy. We have 18 an educational policy
19 board at school district 10. (Inaudible.)
20 And I might just as add that one of
21 your panel members is an ex school board member,
22 Ms. Rose McKenna and she did a fine member as at
23 school board member.
24 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Barbara Baer,
25 representing Manhattan Borough President, C.
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2 Virginia Fields.
3 MS. BAER: I want to say good
4 afternoon and I am here late because we were
5 hoping that the Borough President could come and
6 obviously at the minute she couldn't, so I asked
7 the speech writer to rewrite the speech to
8 reflect that I was speaking and as you can see,
9 if you have the speech in front of you it says,
10 I'm X, a member of the Manhattan Borough
11 President staff. So in any event I'm not going to
12 read the whole speech to you. But I'm going to
13 say a couple things and extemporize and then I
14 hope you'll read it.
15 Basically, you know, the mission of
16 our office has been to improve the education
17 system and that's what we've been doing for a
18 number of years. And we thank whom ever
19 complemented Jackie Kamin and we think we have a
20 great representative in her and we hope that the
21 Mayor's programs will work for all the children.
22 We came up with four or five sort of the
23 principals that I'd like to articulate for you to
24 think about as you're forming this new sort
25 governance position. And I'd like to point out
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2 that for the past five years we've really been
3 trying to do parental development and getting
4 parents involved. A number of you have been to
5 our parent conferences, we have one in January.
6 This one's on children first and special Ed.
7 We've got without a tremendous amount of
8 publicity, we got over 300 parents coming
9 city-wide.
10 We think that what happens as a
11 result those conferences is that parents get more
12 involved because they really understand the
13 technicalities more. Being an advocate for a
14 child is frequently very difficult and it's not
15 just going to visit the teacher. So we hope that
16 we inspire and direct parents to become more
17 involved and that's really one of the mantras of
18 our office and we think that's probably the most
19 important guide to what you have to do.
20 So number one, of our principals is,
21 that parental involvement and it must continue.
22 Number two, this council must be structured as an
23 advisory body and it must be composed the parents
24 that are representative of all the schools in the
25 district. We say that the meetings need to be
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2 structured and regularly scheduled and that
3 there's got to be minutes and records and that
4 the superintendents must or a deputy must be
5 required to come, so there's a real structural
6 sort of guide that will make people come together
7 and work. Number three, the counsel shall serve
8 as an advisory body and review and make
9 recommendations on budget,curriculum, staff and
10 appropriate support services. Number four, the
11 work, I guess we disagree with the gentleman who
12 spoke before, although for sure the school based
13 leadership needs to be improved but we believe
14 the work of the existing school base, parent,
15 teacher, leadership team should continue.
16 Probably without microwaves. In conjunction with
17 the work of the councils.
18 These teams should be strengthen and
19 made to function in each school. By coordinating
20 there work with the councils both bodies would
21 gain stature and be more effective. I think
22 there's been some written material saying there
23 really should be some greater monitoring of these
24 school based parent, teacher groups. And at some
25 levels, government agency, I don't know who, I'm
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2 not asking our office do it, be involved in
3 directly seeing what they're doing.
4 Number five, the local school
5 governance council program should begin as a
6 pilot project, presumably for a couple years, to
7 be reviewed and evaluated annually. And if it's
8 successful after three years. The program could
9 be codified in the city charter as are the
10 community planning boards. When we were
11 discussing, you know, what the form is, we don't
12 really have one opinion but we did note that over
13 the years the community planning boards have
14 become an essential part of government and in
15 fact even though they're advisory they make a
16 tremendous contribution. And as all of you in
17 government know, if a community board propines
18 one way or the other you're very aware of it and
19 you try to deal with that opinion.
20 Those are our five points and we
21 just wanted to say that given the fact that it's
22 Manhattan and we're so involved and now it's
23 going to happen with lower Manhattan and that the
24 issue to some extent is the job market, and not
25 not only whether there will be job, but whether
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2 we'll have students who can fill the job, so we
3 don't have to worry about people coming in from
4 Long Island. We think the work that you're doing
5 is essential and we thank you.
6 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: If you please
7 express our appreciation to the Borough President
8 for the testimony and having sent you to deliver
9 it. Thank you very much.
10 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Jacob Morris,
11 Director of Society for Equitable Excellence.
12 MR. MORRIS: Hello panel. Last night
13 I spoke with Robert Jackson and I asked him, he
14 said he's the most eminent former school board
15 member in the history of New York City and he's
16 going to show up at the school governance
17 hearings (inaudible), he said, well, we got an
18 education committee meeting but I'm going to make
19 it, and I hear that he did. And he asked me, he
20 said Jacob, what do you think about school
21 governance. And I said I think that the solution
22 has to be organic with the existing base of
23 school leadership teams. And then we went onto
24 discuss the nature of the, you know, the district
25 level and how many members it would have and so I
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2 -- you know, I thought about a lot about this for
3 a long time.
4 If you look at my outline of
5 principals for the future of school governance
6 and the question, how can parents and community
7 productively participate. I'd like to say that
8 PTA's, school leadership teams, and anybody that
9 deals with the education of our children has to
10 keep in mind first and foremost, that we're not
11 hear to talk to each other about our own concerns
12 and egos and the word power.
13 The word power has been used here a
14 lot today. I used to own a video store in Long
15 Beach Long Island and I had a young man, who was
16 17 years old who dropped out of high school, and
17 he worked for me that summer. And he was loyal
18 and he said to me. Jacob, I want to have power
19 like you. You own this store. And I laughed, I
20 did laugh. I said power, power is an illusion.
21 I said if I don't serve the clientele of this
22 store and if I don't serve them well, they can
23 stop coming or they can go to another store.
24 Responsibility is real. Competent service is
25 real. Power is an illusion.
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2 And I look back, and I look back 33
3 years ago to when the State Legislature formed
4 the community school boards, and I'm wondering
5 how many of you on the panel really remember I.S.
6 201 and the Reverend Galamason and the city-wide
7 school boycott and Ocean Hills Brownsville,
8 because what came out is why you're sitting here
9 today. And Preston, who actually developed the
10 concept of parent and community involvement in a
11 school based management, leadership team in the
12 early 1960's, based on the failure of integration
13 in New York City. Because the population and the
14 mix of population between white, black and
15 Spanish simply would not sustain integration.
16 Let's not forget, that there was an
17 underlying assumption that you can't have
18 excellence in education without integration. I'm
19 going to say flat out that I agree with stuff
20 that WEB Dubois wrote in the 1930 s. That
21 positive role models and to focus on quality is
22 more important. I came up with -- I've been talk
23 Ernest for a long time about a concept I
24 developed called transparent school. And we've
25 also heard to have accountability, you have to
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2 have defined functions. The defined function
3 that I'm going to push for school leadership
4 teams, is that they maintain the content a school
5 based Website that is comprehensive. Then you'll
6 have transparency, then you'll have
7 accountability, and then you can be responsive to
8 the parents, to the teachers, to the students,
9 because the content will on the school based
10 Website.
11 And let me not exclude those who are
12 low income. Because we can also at same time
13 give the school leadership teams on the school
14 level, the local school level, the responsibility
15 for a voicemail system which would also
16 incorporate the transparent school model.
17 Homework can be on it, the school assignments,
18 when the basketball team plays, whose the coach,
19 whose the faculty advisor for the Chess Club,
20 when is the school play, what's the school
21 budget, what are the minutes for the school
22 leadership team. Real content. This is taxpayer
23 money. What I'm proposing won't cost a lot in
24 this ara of budgetary constraints and my friend
25 from Medgar Evers, he talked about parent
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2 organizers and a separate group which, obviously
3 would have to get funded. I'm going to make the
4 point that the existing school leadership members
5 would actually develop into real parent
6 organizers. Organizers and disseminators of
7 information. I made a couple of notes.
8 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: We'll need to
9 you summarize.
10 MR. MORRIS: I intend to Steve.
11 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: You're past the
12 five minutes but go ahead.
13 MR. MORRIS: Ultimately it's
14 information. Ultimately it's information. You
15 can't make an informed decision without
16 information so if you have a Website that
17 actually has content and you have the
18 responsibility specifically delegated, you can
19 evaluate the performance of the school leadership
20 team in providing, good quality content to it's
21 constituency. The leadership team's essence is
22 to be responsive to it's member constituency's
23 parents, teachers and I'm even going to make a
24 little point about, hey, even the school
25 custodian should have a representative on the
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2 school leadership team. I'm going to say that we
3 should have a three tier governance model. We
4 should have smaller school districts based on an
5 organizational fact of optimum team size which
6 should be between 12 and 18 members. So I'm
7 going to say that the new smaller school
8 districts should have between 12 and 18 schools.
9 And then, on the third tier, we should have 5
10 borough teams, panels, and superintendents and
11 there should be a congruence.
12 There has to be an advocacy
13 function and a forum for problems, grievances and
14 problem solving. I remember at the CPAC meeting,
15 just before UFT contract was finished being
16 negotiated, and Randy came to talk to CPAC about
17 how she was more pro parent than parents, and as
18 her authority she used representative Green and I
19 thought to myself, I said, boy I want to ask this
20 question and the question was, in the banister
21 school, banister school, there the teacher
22 seniority requirements in the contract were
23 waived, which goes into what you were discussing
24 a little earlier obliquely. But there was a lack
25 of preparation at CPAC to ask an intelligent
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2 question at this tremendous opportunity. A
3 preparation, training prior to service is
4 critical.
5 And I'm going to finish I'm going to
6 finish with what I'm going to go call by law
7 number one. People serve, people serve hopefully
8 with good hearts, on these forums, on these
9 teams, on these panels, on these task force, and
10 can you observe each other when you interact and
11 have your discussion about these issues, which
12 are so critical. Personal attacks on other
13 members that don't know how to discuss an issue
14 without attacking someone personally should be an
15 etyma. In other words there should be a little
16 bit of training about meeting management skills
17 and that the leadership teams were set up with
18 that void. Steve, I know that you'll do a better
19 job next time. Focusing on the agenda can move
20 and help decision making and that's what we need
21 for our children. Thank you.
22 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Thank you very
23 much Mr. Morris, we appreciate your testimony and
24 your being here all day long. We have 3
25 individuals who had not signed up prior but have
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2 arrived, even though we are past our time, if
3 we're even allowed to be in this room, we're
4 going to try to accommodate those 3 additional
5 people and then we have our evening session that
6 will commence at 6 0'clock.
7 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Elizabeth
8 Schnee, Co -Chair of CPAC.
9 MS. SCHNEE: Good afternoon.
10 Assemblyman Sanders, Ms. Thomson and Task Force,
11 I really appreciate you staying. And I do
12 apologize that I didn't sign up, this is the
13 first notice I got that actually had a contact
14 number on it. So I apologize and I will be
15 sending in written testimony, but I don't have it
16 prepared.
17 My name is Elizabeth Schnee and I'm
18 the Co-Chair with Robin of the Chancellor's
19 Parent Advisory Council. I'm the mother of 4
20 children who have and are currently receiving an
21 excellent education in the New York City public
22 schools. CPAC is an organization that represents
23 parents from students of New York City public
24 schools. We're the elected parent body from the
25 32 community school districts, the six high
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2 school federation district 75 and district 85.
3 And what we did an as an organization is that
4 we've discuss this topic. We had a committee
5 that did a great of work. Made up of parent
6 members from all over the city and we've come up
7 with some recommendations for the task force so
8 these are them.
9 The school system right now is
10 showing a disparity of results. District to
11 district, school to school, classroom to
12 classroom and student to student, in New York
13 City. Currently there is a disconnect between
14 what is happening in the classroom and the
15 general misunderstanding by the public concerning
16 public schools. As parents, we want a school
17 system or system of schools that's truly
18 accountable to it's students and parents.
19 Parents for the most part want a safe learning
20 environment for their children. Teachers who are
21 strong in content and can think outside of the
22 box. Administrators, superintendents with the
23 with a vision for excellence.
24 Parents would like to see a
25 succession of leadership developed at school and
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2 district levels. We would like to see colleges
3 and universities train their students in
4 community engagement techniques. Parents want
5 schools that provides since and available
6 information about the performance of their child
7 in their local school. Parents want more input
8 into a system which has a direct effect on our
9 lives and the lives of our children. Having
10 parents play a greater role in district-wide
11 decisions including district priorities, through
12 the comprehensive education plan will help the
13 system.
14 The purpose of discussing the
15 replacement of this school boards is to develop
16 effective representative bodies that are an
17 essential part of any plan to develop and
18 implement an educational system, whose
19 overwriting goal is serving the best interests of
20 children. We have to fight the of backward
21 thinking that says, parents are not capable of
22 making education related decisions that will
23 benefit their children.
24 Parents of student in the public
25 school system need a public and open forum to
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2 express their concerns and recommendation about
3 the education of their children. Parents need a
4 mechanism for handling their grievance over their
5 treatment or the treatment of their children, by
6 the school district administration. With this in
7 mind, we feel parents council's should be the
8 replacements for community school boards. Parent
9 councils should be elected from each district or
10 cluster of districts and parents should choose
11 there partners.
12 For example, parent councils can
13 look to community planning boards, real estate --
14 local real estate boards, business advisory
15 boards or chambers of commerce, merchant
16 associations for community partners to better
17 serve the needs of children residing in their
18 neighborhoods. And also to foster strong and
19 positive collaborations. Parents want to send
20 there children to there local community school.
21 This representative parent should
22 have the authority to do following things. One,
23 work with parents to empower and professionalize
24 their roles at local school level. Parents need
25 to be prepared to select and interview qualified
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2 teaching and administrative candidates for their
3 schools. Effectively evaluate all school
4 programs directly effecting their children.
5 Secondly, participate in the process of planning
6 the school community education policy. This is
7 very much what community school boards did
8 before. Three, review and evaluate the district
9 comprehensive educational plan on an annual
10 basis. Four, review and evaluate the
11 superintendent's performance. Five, periodic and
12 regular access to all school district budgetary
13 and curriculum related information and the
14 ability to make recommendations. Six, parent
15 counsel should have an open line of communication
16 and dialogue with the New York City Mayor's
17 office, the Department of Education and the State
18 Legislature. Seven, the parent counsel should be
19 included in the chain of accountability, from the
20 school level to City Hall. That ensures that the
21 focus is kept on children and learning. And
22 eight, the parents councils would be the regular
23 monthly forum for parents to air and resolve
24 district local issues.
25 Everyone realizes good schools are
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2 attainable with the hard work and the commitment
3 of teachers, students administrators and parents.
4 Good schools don't happen by accident. In
5 summary the community school boards as they are
6 should be replaced. There needs to be real
7 reform, from how to train teachers and principals
8 starting at university level. How we fund our
9 schools by the city and state legislatures to the
10 way the general public perceives the children
11 currently attending the New York City public
12 schools. And I'd like to add real short comments
13 of my own.
14 I served on Presidents Council in
15 district 26 as a Co-Chair for six or seven years
16 and I've been a member since. And years ago --
17 and Mr. Friedman was on our community school
18 board, there was a very good model that had to do
19 with three -- a balance of three positions. The
20 superintendent, the presidents council and the
21 community school board. These three balanced
22 each other out and wherever there was a case
23 where someone was unreasonable or where the
24 children were being put aside, there was another
25 leg you could advocate to, to try to resolve the
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2 problem. So that's something I hope that you
3 will keep in mind. Also I've served on school
4 leadership team, three different high school
5 leadership team, one for 14 years in an
6 elementary school that started out as the
7 excellence in education committee then it became
8 the compact for learning 100.11 committee and now
9 it's the school leadership team, so if have you
10 any questions school leadership teams, I'd be
11 happy to answer them. I also served on the
12 district school leadership team and the city-wide
13 school leadership team, so fire away. If you
14 have any questions.
15 MS. BROWN: I have a question. In
16 terms of your community school board and your
17 district leadership team, where are the
18 similarities and where are they different and how
19 do they each interact with superintendent and
20 moving student achievement forward?
21 MS. SCHNEE: Well the district
22 school leadership team is really -- it's a forum
23 for conversation, but really the superintendent
24 or the district is the main power. Whereas the
25 community school board that we used to have, had
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2 the opportunity to pose real questions to the
3 superintendent, to provide a counter balance to
4 policies that were better for the administration
5 than for the children. Unfortunately with the
6 community school board as it's now focused -- as
7 it's now configured, it doesn't have that power
8 anymore. It was also an open way for the parents
9 to get some kind of resolution or dispute
10 resolution when there was a problem with the
11 district that isn't there now and doesn't exist
12 on the district school leadership team.
13 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Friedman.
14 MR. FRIEDMAN: Hi Elizabeth.
15 Question for you, (Inaudible) can a panel that
16 reviews the superintendent's and reviews the
17 budget, reviews the TCP without actually having
18 decision making authority be effective?
19 MS. SCHNEE: Well, the question
20 itself is the answer, I think. There has to be
21 an open forum for review. The fact that in the
22 past the community school board signed the
23 superintendent's contract was -- made a
24 difference. Without that kind of power or
25 authority, then it can either be a well
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2 functioning advisory committee, just like any SLT
3 can, or it can simply be a rubber stamp for the
4 powers that be within the district. And I just
5 want to say one word world behalf of school
6 leadership teams, some of them really work and I
7 realize some of them don't, but some of them
8 really do.
9 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: The ones that
10 don't work why don't they work?
11 MS. SCHNEE: Quick answer, the
12 principal doesn't want to give up control. The
13 UFT basically doesn't really -- I'm going to
14 assign balme all the way around. The UFT doesn't
15 really want to work with what the parents have to
16 do or they're intransigent, they won't budge. Or
17 the parents have their own ax to grind and
18 they're of on a tangent and they have their own
19 agenda. Those are some of the primary reasons why
20 they don't work.
21 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Is training
22 the answer for those challenges?
23 MS. SCHNEE: Well, training is
24 really important. Personality is a factor.
25 Training involves costs. We talked a lot about
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2 training but nobody said where the money's going
3 to come from and we're under funded. Training is
4 necessary and it helps. But sometimes you end up
5 with participants who don't want to participate
6 and they basically say I'm taking by bat and my
7 ball and I'm leaving. You guys can have your
8 meeting if you want but I've made my decision.
9 So training is definitely a positive but it won't
10 alleviate the negatives.
11 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Your district
12 school leadership team, were you responsible for
13 the comprehensive education plan and were you
14 also responsible for the budget?
15 MS. SCHNEE: No. We reviewed the
16 district comprehensive education plan and the
17 superintendent brought it to presidents council
18 for review. President councils are really a key
19 area where you have people who know what's going
20 on in the schools. They've invested there time
21 and effort, they're there because they love their
22 kids and they really have a good sense of what's
23 going on. They have more, in my opinion, of
24 functioning role than the district school
25 leadership team and as far as the budget, it
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2 comes out in August, there may be a review by the
3 community school board. We hear about it on
4 presidents council, but by that time it's already
5 been determined.
6 And something to keep in mind, often
7 95 percent of the budget is basically already
8 predetermined. You've got your staff. You've
9 got your teachers. You've got your principals,
10 secretaries. So there often isn't that much to
11 really talk about, in real terms.
12 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Assemblyman
13 Green.
14 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: A lot of -- you
15 and lot of the other witnesses have used the
16 term, review and evaluate the superintendent,
17 define that, what does that mean and how would
18 that on the new system -- how would you do that
19 on the the new system?
20 MS. SCHNEE: Well, there definitely
21 needs to be, in my opinion, an evaluative role of
22 the presidents council, of the superintendent,
23 that currently doesn't really exist. I don't
24 believe that parents should get caught up in
25 petty issues and try to veto a superintendent.
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2 There need to be safeguards so that parents own
3 individual agenda items don't derail the process.
4 There neat needs to be real discussions. Maybe
5 some kind of an evaluation that the presidents
6 council could fill out and then submit, which
7 would be reviewed by chancellor, I think that
8 would be helpful. And as far as the community
9 school board, they used to have a real function,
10 but I think a lot of those powers have been taken
11 away. Somebody needs to give feed back whose on
12 the ground in the local area.
13 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: About the
14 superintendent?
15 MS. SCHNEE: Right.
16 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: Did -- in the
17 past did the school boards, I know they could,
18 you know, not continue a contract but did they
19 also have the power to do let's say a vote of no
20 confidence, if fact they saw a systemic failure
21 within a school district or cluster school
22 buildings?
23 MS. SCHNEE: Well, I come from a
24 really good district so we didn't really have
25 that issue. I think that what you want is you
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2 want real input from the people on the ground in
3 that district that can come then to the
4 chancellor or to whom ever through some kind of a
5 forum that can be meaningful. I don't remember
6 how it went, because we never had a lousy
7 superintendent.
8 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Well we thank you
9 very much for your testimony and for waiting and
10 being here.
11 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Middy Streeter,
12 PTA Co-President.
13 MR. STREETER: Good afternoon and
14 I'd like to thank you all for hanging in here. It
15 seems like the discussion seems to be revolving
16 quite a bit around the question of parental
17 involvement and the development of a replacement
18 representative body for school boards is all
19 about how do we maintain and hopefully increase
20 the amount of parental involvement. That will
21 -- that is universally agreed to be an essential
22 ingredient to the success of our children in the
23 school system, and there's just, this is, I
24 guess an ongoing question as to how can we -- it
25 should be a periodically a question that should
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2 arise, is how can we increase the amount of
3 parental involvement in the education system.
4 And it's a question that is certainly not going
5 to be resolved by you, but I applaud your goal of
6 including that in the process of finding a
7 replacement for the school boards.
8 So, my thinking is that the first
9 way to increase parental involvement is to give
10 them a voice in the education of their children.
11 And so what we've been discussing is, how can we
12 create an effective forum so that the most basic
13 element of democracy, the ability to -- freedom
14 of speech is encouraged, and so the very act of
15 giving parents the right to express their
16 concerns will increase parental involvement in
17 the long run. That is the first step along the
18 way, and so whatever representative body is
19 created, must meet on a regular basis and give
20 people an opportunity to express their views.
21 And this is the first power that we
22 should give to parents. There's been discussion
23 and will continue to be discussion as to what
24 other powers parents should have in terms of some
25 say over the budgetary and personnel matters in
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2 the school district, but it should all begin with
3 them having the power to speak. So in addition
4 to the other powers that will be discussed as to
5 how much should be given to parents, I think I
6 would like to say that they should also be given
7 the power to have some authority to issue report
8 cards for the district superintendents, so that
9 they will have a more codified way of expressing
10 their views and on a collective basis. And that
11 is the concept of a report card is something that
12 the media is familiar with. We have report cards
13 for schools and I think that might be one of
14 getting more attention focused on the views of
15 parents.
16 So that is my thought as to how we
17 can increase the role played by parents and I
18 hope to have a document which I will submit to
19 you as at a later time. If that's possible,
20 that's possible right. Thank you very much.
21 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: We thank you. We
22 have one more witness and then I have to -- I've
23 been advised by my able staff that as soon as Mr.
24 Fager completes his testimony I have to ask you
25 to leave the auditorium promptly because the
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2 security folks also have to leave. So, as soon as
3 we are done with Mr. Fager we have to leave the
4 auditorium very quickly and let me just announce
5 now that we will be back here at about 6:00,
6 we're running late, but about 6:00 we will begin
7 our evening session. So Mr. Fager, you are last
8 on our list for the daytime session.
9 MR. FAGER: I can't believe you've
10 all been here since 10:00 a.m., we compliment you
11 or question your sanity, but I'll compliment you.
12 But let me -- I have this feeling of dejavu all
13 over again. I was around in the 60's, I saw the
14 decentralization happen, I was a school teacher
15 back in those days. I was in Albany, I spoke to
16 Steve Sanders in 96, when we redid governance
17 again and we never get it right. And the chances
18 are, we're not going to get it right today. So
19 don't say that, why not say it because that's the
20 history. So maybe some of you can seize the
21 moment, because otherwise there's going to be a
22 process and a report and the public will sort of
23 the be gently engaged like this and then the
24 legislature will do something in May or June and
25 Roger will be a gass, at what happens probably,
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2 and there we will.
3 Let me just say a little bit about
4 why I feel like I'm empowered to say some of
5 these things. I had children in the public
6 schools for 15 years. I did a lot of things in
7 those years but one of the things, I was on the
8 school leadership team on the Bronx High School
9 of Science. I also, as a said I was a teacher in
10 late 60's and I'm back teaching again. And
11 during that 30 year hiatus, I was the education
12 advisor to the city council president and also in
13 he mid 90's I was an education columnist for the
14 Daily News. And as I said, when I thought about
15 it -- I sort of dropped out about four five years
16 ago from sort of the publicly speaking and being
17 a general kind of pain in the neck to the system.
18 But when -- I saw this as an
19 opportunity where maybe once again we are going
20 to confront what's wrong with the system and just
21 maybe, maybe we'll get it right. And what I did
22 was I pulled out the old Bundy commission report.
23 In some ways you're a successor to that
24 commission. They issued, and I actually have it
25 here, most people probably -- maybe it's the only
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2 copy still in existence. It's a brilliant
3 report. It really talks about what is wrong in
4 the public school and those problem are the same
5 problems 35 years later.
6 And so when I think, or maybe worse,
7 I'll agree with that comment. How is it
8 possible? And when you look at it, it wasn't
9 that decentralization was a bad idea, it was a
10 very good idea. What happens is, is when you
11 look at the plan that was proposed and then you
12 look at what the legislature did with it in the
13 late '60s, what they did was compromised and
14 killed many of the major points that the panel
15 had put together. And so in some ways the
16 legislature is responsible and maybe the public
17 is too but we were pretty engage in those days,
18 for creating a governance system that when I
19 think about some of the kids that I've interacted
20 with as a teacher or as a parent with other
21 parents, hundreds of thousands of children, maybe
22 millions of children in the last 35 years, have
23 really suffered an educational death.
24 And to suffer an educational death
25 in society, some kids end up dead. Some kids
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2 end up in prison. Some kids end out up in mental
3 hospitals, some kids end up out on the street
4 homeless or they end up in low level jobs,
5 struggling in a global economy that they barely
6 can survive in. And that doesn't have to be, I'm
7 not saying the schools are all the answers, they
8 certainly are not. But they are a major part of
9 the answer and we've got to get it right.
10 What's wrong? Let me just read a
11 couple of sentences from the original Bundy
12 report. First it has to do with parents and
13 community, that was the whole idea of
14 decentralization and it's not like somebody wrote
15 in the New York Times some wonderful idea from
16 the hippies in the '60s, if you go out outside of
17 New York City into the 600 or 700 other school
18 districts in New York State, they have community
19 involvement. It's what we need here. It's what
20 they have there. Why don't we have it here? Why
21 has the legislature never brought it to New York
22 City? So let me just read a couple things here.
23 Parents of New York City public school children
24 lack the sense of engagement in their schools
25 that is taken for granted in thousands of towns
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2 and schools, city school districts throughout the
3 state. Meaning it exists everywhere else.
4 I grew up in Long Island. The
5 parents in that community felt very much as
6 though it was their schools and their school
7 system. And if things weren't right with the
8 school, they made an issue of it. They had a
9 real voice in it. That's one thing. Let me just
10 read one other sentence about parents. In New
11 York City the parents are blocked from playing a
12 fully effective role in the educational
13 enterprise by the absence of ready channels of
14 responsibility between the school system and the
15 public. What that means is, we really -- we go
16 to PA meetings. PTA meetings and that's kind of
17 it. School leadership teams, I was in Albany
18 when they got mandated by law in 96, and I said
19 to the speak and I said Chairman Sander, this
20 isn't going to cut it, this isn't going to make
21 it and it hasn't made it and the same thing
22 happened back in the late '60s.
23 So we need to -- I believe the
24 school leadership teams are part of the answer as
25 a number of people have said, they really have
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2 flaws, because once again they weren't created to
3 really be meaningful and we got to do it right
4 this time. The other problem in the system, and
5 I urge you not -- it's not only parent and
6 community involvement that you need to deal with
7 but it's how to you empower the school community.
8 How do you get parents to work with teachers, to
9 work with principals, to work with students and
10 high schools so that they come together. Because
11 there is too much of an us against them all over
12 the school system. And the school leadership
13 teams represent a possible solution to that.
14 Maybe the only solution to get people -- empower
15 that team and get those people to work together.
16 Training is part of the answer but I think if you
17 empowered the school leadership teams, people
18 will come to it.
19 But what kind of system do we exist
20 in now? Once again, Bundy panel said, we find
21 that the school system is heavily encumbered with
22 constraint and limitations, which are the results
23 of efforts by one group to assert a negative and
24 self serving power against someone else. These
25 constraints today build fair to strangle the
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2 system in it's own checks and balances. And if
3 anything, in the last 35 year, that has gotten
4 worse. The system -- Donna Shalal, the former
5 President of Hunter the former secretary of HHS,
6 now in the University of Miami, she called the
7 system a rotten barrel. She said there are lots
8 of good apples lots of good people in the system,
9 but the system is a rotten barrel and that was
10 true when she said it 10 or 15 years ago and it's
11 true today. And this panel has a chance to do
12 something about that. Whether you're going to do
13 it, I don't know, the odds are against you.
14 The odds are against people in
15 Albany listening to what you have to say, when
16 you put your report together. So where are we
17 how do we solve this? It's a beginning of an
18 answer, school leadership teams are a hope. It's
19 a place where can you bring parents in, bring
20 communities in. And by the way, parents don't
21 want to run schools. You hear that so often.
22 That's not what they're about. They want their
23 child to be well educated. They want -- most of
24 the them don't necessarily even want to come to
25 the school. They want to be the at home partner
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2 in the process. And there has to be an
3 engagement. I've written reports, I can tell you
4 all about parent involvement but it's to late and
5 it's no time to do it now. But you got to -- the
6 school leadership team could be that bridgehead
7 in the school for parents and that's the way to
8 think about it because parents, as the Bundy
9 panel said and everybody else who have studied
10 this over the last 35 years, will tell you
11 parents are treated like outsiders in many
12 school.
13 There are some schools like in
14 district 26 where that may not be the case. But
15 we have a dual system here and the majority of
16 the system treats parents as outsiders. So we
17 need to, not only bring the parents in but we
18 need to empower the principal, the teachers, the
19 parents and students in high school to have
20 decision making over personnel, over budget and
21 over accountability. Because until you bring
22 those decisions down to the school level, they're
23 going to be poorly made as they have been for the
24 last 35 years. And there are a lots of people who
25 want to keep it the way it and it will state way
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2 it is. So how can we maybe not keep it the way
3 it is?
4 I'm not encouraged because I think,
5 one of the previous speakers said we see this
6 panel going on and then we also see the
7 chancellor's children's first, I guess effort,
8 great secrecy around it, hard to know what
9 they're doing, what input they're getting.
10 Unless these two groups kind of come together and
11 create a real push behind a specific proposal.
12 And that's what I urge you to do, that's what the
13 Bundy panel did. They put together a proposal
14 and what you need to do is put together a
15 proposal with the chancellor, with children
16 first, then you need to have public hearings
17 again, because we have never really had a good
18 debate or dialogue in this city about what's
19 wrong with the schools and how you change it.
20 Unless you stimulate that it's just
21 going to quietly go up to Albany and the same
22 stuff is going to happen. So that's your charge
23 as to one, some of you I'm sure really know
24 what's wrong in the schools. Some of you may be
25 relatively new to this, you might read the Bundy
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2 commission report, it's excellent, not only there
3 analysis of the problem, but what they propose
4 and then what went wrong, why what they propose
5 didn't happen. And it's really fascinating.
6 When I perused it about a week ago, it was really
7 discouraging to see what they had actually and
8 what we actually did. So you know, I hope it's
9 not dejavu all over again. I hope in 10 or 15
10 years I don't have grandchildren and I'm sending
11 them to the good schools that work and still
12 wondering about why the majority of the people in
13 the city send there kids to schools that's don't
14 work, that kids end up in worse shape than they
15 are today.
16 So some of you, you know, grab it,
17 do something with it. You're on a Task Force
18 that's supposed to mean something. The way it
19 will normally happen it will just kind of dribble
20 off and we'll all wonder what went wrong. Thank
21 you.
22 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Thank you very
23 much John Fager. Questions? Mr. Green has a
24 question.
25 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: I guess one of
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2 the things I've been struggling with today is, we
3 talked about, you know, you look at district 26,
4 how well it worked even though it had the same
5 kind of school board and law that district 17 in
6 Brooklyn had, for example, or district 9 in the
7 Bronx. You know, and why you know in one area
8 did it work and it didn't work in others. And
9 for me, I mean on of the things we have not
10 talked about is the question of race and class.
11 How certain communities are in fact
12 underdeveloped and how that relates to questions
13 of outcome, even as it relates to governance.
14 And I think that's why some folks have advocated
15 that there needs to be resources for parental
16 development, you know, and also parent advocacy,
17 to help inform and guide the process for certain
18 communities that are more underdeveloped than
19 others.
20 I'm wondering whether or not that's
21 one of the things that we need to look at,
22 because if you go back to the original struggle
23 around decentralization, at the core of it, the
24 issue was how do you empowered these communities
25 who have been marginalized. I think we've learned
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2 a lot, or I hope we've learned some lessons
3 because in part what occurred was, in many cases,
4 more or less the changing of the palace guard.
5 There was not any real fundamental changes.
6 Particularly even with respect to parental
7 participation. And in certain districts, in
8 district 17 as an example, parents were
9 (inaudible), even though most of the board
10 members were African American. Parents did not
11 have an opportunity to have any participation in
12 the process, and so is that, I mean, is that one
13 of the thing that we need to look at, I mean for
14 instance, I'm starting to believe that one of the
15 reasons why, you know, in certain communities
16 issue of corruption can take hold, is in part
17 because of issues of underdevelopment or that,
18 you know, the constituency there may not be as
19 informed as to how to fight back when certain
20 kind of --
21 MR. FAGER: Let me answer the
22 question. The Bundy like may remember had
23 proposed a community school boards have 11 member
24 on it. The proposal was that 6 of them be
25 parents of children in the public schools, in
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2 that district. And that it would be a parent
3 election of those people, and the other five
4 would be picked by the Mayor. And that would come
5 down through the Board of Education to the Mayor.
6 Think of how different community
7 school boards and decentralization might have
8 been had just that one aspect of the Bundy
9 proposal had been carried out. Some of the
10 people who -- because right in the report, it
11 talks about the history having been, they were
12 worried and they rejected -- the Bundy panel
13 rejected direct election of community school
14 members, because they worried about the
15 communities that you're talking about not coming
16 out to an election because of a lack of
17 development, as you say it, and that they
18 anticipated the very problem that we then had in
19 a majority of our school boards for the next 35
20 years.
21 They anticipates it and yet the
22 legislature went ahead. And what happened was
23 that a political club, local poverty pimps and
24 unfortunately often the UFT aligned with some of
25 the worse interests in those districts, rather
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2 than lighting up with parents, worked to
3 undermine decentralization, but it was
4 anticipated in this report and yet nevertheless
5 we went ahead and did it the wrong way so there's
6 a lot that can be done with parents. Parents
7 start from a different place, There are clearly
8 different types parents and communities
9 throughout the city. But we have to -- we need to
10 respond to the different needs and some of it has
11 to do with education development.
12 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Levin.
13 MR. LEVIN: Just -- not a question
14 but -- so that we go out on a high note. I think
15 you're giving a challenge to the Task Force not
16 to be condemned or to repeat the mistakes of
17 history. There's a revival of the musical in town
18 that tells us that we're going to achieve an
19 impossible dream .
20 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Why don't we end
21 on that note, especially since security is
22 waiting for us to leave immediately. We will
23 reconvene at about 6:00, panel members that gives
24 you enough time for almost nothing , but try to
25 get back as promptly at 6:00 as you can. Thank
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2 you very much we shall return.
3 (TIME NOTED: 4:53 P.M.)
4 (A RECESS WAS TAKEN.)
5 (NIGHTTIME SESSION. 6:20).
6 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Good Evening,
7 the Task Force on School District Governance
8 reform is reconvening. We held our first session
9 this morning. Ran a little bit late, that's the
10 reason why we're starting off this evening a
11 little bit late, but it was a good thing, because
12 it meant that we had more people testifying that
13 we had originally expected. So we are now to
14 proceed as we will, with all of our sessions in
15 each borough, we are required to hold five
16 hearings. One in every borough. And that is
17 what we are doing in Manhattan today, in Queens
18 this Thursday, a week from Thursday in the Bronx,
19 January the 6 on Staten Island, and then on the
20 16 of January in Brooklyn. Each of those
21 hearings will have two sessions. One that will
22 begin at about 10:00 in the morning and last
23 until 4:00 roughly and an evening session to
24 begin in the vicinity of 6:00.
25 We're doing it this way obviously to
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2 maximize the amount of time that we can spend
3 with the public and give as many people,
4 especially working men and women, an opportunity
5 to testify at a time that is convenient for them.
6 My name is Steve Sanders. I'm a Co-Chair of this
7 Task Force, to my right is Terry Thomson, who is
8 the other Co-Chair. And I think maybe we will
9 just to start to my far right and some of the
10 task force member who are here will identify
11 themselves and then Terry will say a couple o
12 words and we will get to the important part of
13 the evening, which is your testimony.
14 MS. WYLDE: Kathy Wylde, with the
15 New York City Partnership.
16 ASSEMBLYMAN LAVELLE: John Lavell,
17 Assemblyman from Staten Island.
18 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: Roger Green,
19 Assemblyman from Brooklyn.
20 MS. BROWN: Robin Brown,
21 Chancellor's Parent Advisory or Counsel.
22 MS. ARCE-BELLO: Jane Arce-Bello,
23 community activist from the Bronx.
24 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFER: Audrey
25 Phefer, Assemblywoman from Queens.
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2 MR. LEVIN: Jerry Levin, Retired
3 CEO, AOL Time Warner.
4 MR. CLAYTON: Eric Clayton, United
5 Parents Associations of New York City.
6 MS. McKENNA: Rose McKenna, retired
7 from the New York City Board of Ed and former
8 board member.
9 MR. FRIEDMAN: Jack Friedman, parent
10 of 2 New York City High School students from
11 Queens.
12 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: I should just
13 make mention as I did at this morning session,
14 when I was explaining the proceedings. And the
15 reasons for these proceeding is that this Task
16 Force was created as part of the school
17 governance law reforms that were passed by the
18 State Legislature in June. As you know, a lot of
19 those reforms went to the direction of giving the
20 Mayor much more responsibility and accountability
21 and the chancellor much more responsibility and
22 accountability. That law also terminates local
23 community school boards at the end of this school
24 year on June 30. But it also the law also
25 requires that the school boards be replaced with
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2 something that we hope will be more effective and
3 provide greater community representation and
4 parent input. And to that end his Task Force was
5 created to make recommendations to the State
6 Legislature, that has the responsibility to enact
7 into law a replacement for the community school
8 boards.
9 We are required to hold the
10 hearings, to listen very carefully to the public
11 comment and input and then submit our
12 recommendations and our proposals to the State
13 Legislature no later than February 15. And we
14 will keep to that schedule. Terry Thomson.
15 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Thank you,
16 welcome. I just want to say that we had a
17 wonderful daytime session. We had some very very
18 thoughtful dialogue and presentation from the
19 speakers and it was really excellent. And I just
20 want to assure everyone here that this Task Force
21 is very serious about the very important
22 responsibility that we have and we're committed
23 to working hard to come up with the best possible
24 structure that will provide meaningful, parent
25 and community participation in our school system,
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2 so let's begin. Our first speaker is Siegfried
3 Holzer, school board member from district 6.
4 MR. HOLZER: Good Evening, ladies
5 and gentlemen. I'm here actually advocating for
6 keeping school boards. I've been a school board
7 for approximately 20 years. Being elected at
8 different times. One time I was still a member of
9 a school staff so therefore I was not eligible to
10 run. I've been a teacher, I was a teacher for 31
11 years, I'm a retired teacher and I feel that the
12 elimination of school boards would be a major
13 mistake. We are now at this stage advocates for
14 parents. Parents need us more than ever before.
15 I don't believe there is a parent in the
16 neighborhood who would dare pick up a phone and
17 call superintendent, principal or anyone else
18 like they do the school board.
19 When there are problems, we are
20 there to try to resolve them. I know that there
21 have been reputations put out that certain school
22 boards were acting beyond what their duties were.
23 I can say this, I've been on the school board for
24 20 years and school board six, we certainly held
25 to our responsibility. Where would parents go if
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2 for example, you eliminated school boards, and
3 you had a panel in Manhattan, Staten Island,
4 Brooklyn Bronx and Queens of parents. It is most
5 difficult right now to reach the superintendent
6 on a one to one basis. And if you have a panel,
7 which is just organized of parents, there's
8 always a danger of influence with regards to
9 particular school. I'm worried about certain
10 issues, which would come out which would be the
11 fact that certain parents are pro and certain
12 parents are con.
13 As a school board member I can't be
14 pro or con anyone. What I do is, I have to
15 listen and therefore react to what I hear. I
16 feel that I have been an advocate for children
17 for last six years. Since we had many of the
18 powers that originally were ours removed, that's
19 the only job that we really have. Removing
20 school boards will eliminate all that power that
21 we have essentially of helping parents. So
22 therefore, I would strongly urge you keep school
23 boards. Where else in The State of New York do
24 you have a body, which has just organized parents
25 when in every town and city throughout the State
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2 New York, you have elected school boards? .
3 As elected school boards, we do not
4 feel that we have to, in any way, cater to any
5 individuals because of them -- because we owe
6 them something. What we are doing here is we are
7 elected and we represent parents. And it is my
8 feeling, my very strong feeling, that if you
9 eliminate school boards, that you're going to ask
10 for a number of problems that do not now exist.
11 We are still a buffer between the professionals
12 in the district and the parents. Many times
13 parents have complaints and there white washed.
14 And we then have to come up and see if we can
15 come up with an answer. Many of the problems
16 that are created within a district, some of them
17 may be minor, but they then later on get bigger
18 and bigger and better.
19 We don't have to have lawyers making
20 a lot of money because parents are not going to
21 come and complain to them. I think we still have
22 to be an advocacy group. I very strongly urge to
23 you rethink the idea of eliminating school boards
24 and have it elected. However, I'll make a
25 suggestion, in the sense that many people are
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2 critical of the fact that there is a small body
3 of people just showing up for school board
4 elections. I would say that the school board
5 elections should be moved to the same time as
6 general elections. It can be done. I work the
7 poles and I can tell you it's very easy to be
8 done with regard to that and it will save a lot
9 of money. I therefore again hopefully hope that
10 you will reconsider your way of thinking with
11 regards to eliminating school boards and keep
12 them as they are.
13 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Levin.
14 MR. LEVIN: Mr. Holzer, let's take
15 advantage of your experience and let's stipulate
16 that we are not here eliminate the school boards
17 and therefore deprive parents of an avenue.
18 Rather we're trying to find, which is always very
19 healthy, to take a refresh look at what kind of
20 institution can we have and we can still call it
21 whatever you'd like, that actually delivers on
22 parental involvement. So based on your
23 experience, and what you've observed in addition
24 to your recommendation with respect to the voting
25 activity, what would you like to see that would
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2 improve the opportunity for parental involvement?
3 MR. HOLZER: I believe that although
4 you do have parent councils in each district you
5 do have to have a body which is independent from
6 both the professional staff and the parents who
7 going to be an advocacy group, an advocacy group
8 for children. There are many times that even
9 parents are making mistakes, that we did resolve
10 the problem, but if you eliminate any kind of a
11 body that would be independent in the sense that
12 they're a buffer between both the professional
13 and the parents, you are eliminating -- and
14 eliminating a lot of good things that are
15 happening. I mean, I can say this, there are no
16 parent in my district that is shy enough not to
17 pick up the phone 10:00 at night and talk to me.
18 I don't think they'll do that to the
19 superintendent and I don't think they'll do that
20 to a teacher.
21 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Mr. Holzer,
22 are you suggesting that parents shouldn't be on
23 school boards? Are there parents who are members
24 of your school board?
25 MR. HOLZER: Absolutely, I'm not
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2 suggesting that at all. I'm suggesting that we
3 have an elected body which would not be home to
4 the superintendent or to anybody else, but that
5 we should keep electing school boards. Whether
6 you make it up to 12 or 13 people on the school
7 board, whether you have -- there's no
8 restrictions as far as parents, we have parent
9 on the school board there's no problem with that
10 at all, as a matter of fact I would advocate it.
11 But I will also say this, you do have a number of
12 other schools in the community, you have
13 parochial schools, you have private schools and
14 if you eliminate school boards, they are no
15 longer being represented, and essentially they do
16 have a right to be represented because many of
17 the title one programs or chapter one programs,
18 as they're called now a case days, they're
19 entitled to also. And certainly they have to
20 have some kind of spokesman.
21 I for one, I represent the Jewish
22 community up in Washington Heights. I'm the only
23 one on the board. The majority of the members of
24 the board are of the ethnic composition of most
25 of the people in the area. And I think that
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2 that's still the best way of going, is by going
3 through the elective process.
4 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: You've been on
5 the board you know, for a long time now. Given
6 you know, the different roles you've played or
7 the different roles as community school boards
8 have had over the years, what do you see as the
9 important roles or responsibilities that need to
10 be handled locally, you mentioned advocacy as one
11 are there other roles that need --
12 MR. HOLZER: Curriculum, I think you
13 should look at curriculum. I think there are
14 different needs in different areas. It's very
15 well -- I was in the school system in 1968 when
16 we had the great strike and the community
17 controlled groups and I'm well aware of the fact
18 that we cannot go back to where we were then.
19 The idea was that many of the dictates that were
20 brought forth were from one 110 Livingston Street
21 and what happened by the time they got down to
22 the school level, they were not aware of some of
23 the sensitivities that were involved with regards
24 to the school levels. And this was the criticism
25 at the time, that they called the community
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2 control. But I'm not advocating going to the
3 extent of where the community completely controls
4 the education of the children. We still need
5 professionals for that, but I'm advocating that
6 if there are situations where we can be the
7 buffer between a bad situation and a good one, I
8 think we should be exactly that.
9 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Clayton.
10 MR. CLAYTON: How you doing. I have
11 a logistic question, I heard somebody else during
12 the day testimony also say that elections -- if
13 the school boards remain that elections should
14 tie-in with the general election. Well now as
15 you know, most voters, at least myself, when I go
16 into a pole to vote I generally just click right
17 down the party line, so since parents --
18 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Which parties
19 line is that?
20 MR. CLAYTON: So you know since
21 parents wouldn't have that alignment, then how
22 would you differentiate the parents segment of
23 that I mean, would it -- it can be cumbersome
24 then, the election. How would you logistically
25 resolve that?
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2 MR. HOLZER: First all, I don't
3 think you would go down -- it would be a party
4 election, because you would have a separate line
5 for school board election, which if you're going
6 into the voting booth, which you could use then
7 as away of selecting the member that you want, if
8 you're a registered voter. The parents would
9 have a separate table in each -- and that --
10 because you still have to look at whether they're
11 registered as parent voters. You don't want
12 anybody coming off the street just voting, they
13 can go from one election place to another and
14 just vote and do it over and over again. I think
15 that it's doable, because I've -- I'm an
16 information clerk in the general elections, and I
17 come there early in the morning, 5:30 in the
18 morning to set things up and I can say this, that
19 if every ED had one table for parent voters, I
20 don't think you'd have any problems.
21 ASSEMBLYMAN LAVELLE: I think
22 though, that you'd probably would have to have
23 the regular voters vote on parer ballots in that
24 instance because like in 2 years -- in 2005 there
25 will be a Mayoral election, all city wide offices
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2 will be up, there would be no room on the on the
3 ballot in the machines for that, so I would think
4 you would have to do all paper ballots for the
5 school board. But I understand if you did it on
6 the same day, that that may be something that
7 would increase for the turn out so that would be
8 good.
9 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Any other
10 comments or questions? Well Mr. Holzer we very
11 much appreciate your testimony. I guess I would
12 just say parenthetically that the decision about
13 the elimination of the local community school
14 boards as they exist now was really not part of
15 the our charge. That was a decision made by the
16 legislature in June. So they did do go out of
17 the existence it is our -- on June 30. It is our
18 responsibility to refashion community
19 representation by whatever guys or whatever name
20 it may be called, but they do go out of existence
21 by operation of law based on the governance law
22 that was passed. But I think that we understand
23 what you feel needs to be in it's place which is,
24 I presume something very similar to what we have
25 now with some of the changes with respect to the
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2 voting. We appreciate your testimony sir.
3 MR. HOLZER: Thank you, good night.
4 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Caroline Prager,
5 a member of Advocates for public representation.
6 MS. PRAGER: Good evening. I've also
7 submitted a written testimony and I do hope you
8 will have time to read it, if for no other
9 reason than -- and I'm not going to reiterate
10 what's in there, but if for no other reason than
11 the subtext that has been running through all the
12 discussion that I've heard so far, is really how
13 can we make whatever the governance entity is
14 going to be more responsive to parents. And what
15 the literature shows, based on better minds than
16 mine, people who actually look at this kind of
17 thing, is that parental involvement in school
18 systems that under Mayoral control, has actually
19 diminished.
20 One year there was a great deal
21 about what's happened in Chicago, where there
22 extremely strong school leadership teams and
23 again what the people who look at this sort of
24 the thing or scrutinize it have demonstrated is
25 that, as centralized control becomes stronger
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2 parental involvement, through governance, has
3 actually diminished. And that's a very -- in a
4 sense that's the inherent flaw in any governance
5 system that one tries to create in a strongly
6 centralized environment. It was the inherent
7 flaw in the original decentralization law,
8 because decentralization and centralization are
9 basically incompatible unless one finds ways of
10 trying to bridge that.
11 And under Mayoral control in New
12 York City, that problem has really -- is really
13 exacerbated, it is much worse now than it even
14 was in 1969 when the original empowering
15 legislation creating community school boards
16 arose. But I'm really here this evening with --
17 more with questions than with answers. And the
18 first one being you know, if form follows
19 function, what function do we expect from our
20 governance bodies? Let's not worry at the moment
21 about whether we should have two of these and
22 three of those and representatives rom here and
23 representatives from there and elected or
24 appointed, because those are things that can be
25 worked out, but the question, the basic question
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2 before us is, what do we want a community
3 governance body to do?
4 And there have been references to
5 your historic opportunities, but let me not miss
6 the opportunity to repeat that you really do have
7 an opportunity to create something different and
8 something unique. Something that will attempt to
9 bridge that contradiction between strong central
10 authority and yet sufficient, whatever you want
11 to call it, responsibility, authority involvement
12 at the local level that creates a kind of check
13 and balance on the strong central authority. And
14 much more important you have something to do
15 thats unique under the system of Mayoral control.
16 Because unfortunately the Mayoral control pattern
17 of governance has been taking the same shape in
18 almost every city. And what it basically says
19 is we will have a strong centralized authority we
20 will have something called school leadership
21 teams. We hope that they don't really bother us
22 very much and don't have a whole lot to do.
23 And for whatever reason, you know,
24 it allows Mayors to -- it eases the way for
25 Mayors to satisfy their agenda. But New York City
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2 is not like any other city that his experienced
3 Mayoral control. New York City is not Boston,
4 Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City and any
5 host of others. New York City does not have an
6 inner city period. Everyone of those cities has
7 an inner city in which basically the middle
8 income earner, the middle class, whatever
9 euphemism you want to use for that group of
10 people had already deserted the school system.
11 They had deserted the inner city and the inner
12 cites had been left, unfortunately to those who
13 are at least empowered and least able to do
14 anything to improve their schools.
15 But we're not in New York City,
16 we're not New York City in terms of size, you
17 know most Mayoral control cities have roughly 40,
18 60,000 students. Boston is often held up as an
19 example. I just spent four years in Boston.
20 Boston has 64,000 students. Any Mayor strongly
21 committed to improving the schools through
22 exceptional finance. We don't necessarily have a
23 Mayor who is able to commit the dollars that
24 might be needed to support the system and we
25 don't have 64,000 students. We have one million
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2 students. In a city more and plus, in a city
3 where the population, the public supports public
4 education. The public has not deserted the
5 public schools.
6 The public maybe has turned away
7 from bad schools, but there is -- even on the
8 part of people who send there kids to private
9 school. There is, if you get involved in
10 personal conversations, there is a fondness for
11 -- I went to P.S. 84 and it was so wonderful when
12 I went there. Of course one is tempted to ask
13 why don't you send your child there now, but that
14 might be a little indelicate. But the basic
15 point is, New York City is not like any other
16 city under Mayoral control. We are still a city
17 where people believe in public education and want
18 the school system to succeed.
19 And so my first question for the
20 group is really, do we want to use the one size
21 fits all model in Mayoral control or do we want
22 of governance under Mayoral control or do we want
23 to find a forum of governance that really helps
24 bridge the this inherent flaw that was built into
25 the original governance legislation. Between
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2 very strong centralized control and yet sometime
3 some kind of decentralized bodies at the
4 community district whatever level.
5 And to do that I think we have to
6 ask ourselves, is governance control. That is a
7 control from the center governance. Is
8 advisement governance. Or does governance mean
9 that the body, whatever the body is, has real
10 responsibilities and real accountability. To the
11 public and to the groups that it serves.
12 Certainly centralized control from a centralized
13 education department can produce greater
14 efficiencies and greater uniformity, just as
15 advice from appointed bodies can produce useful
16 input. But control is not governance any more
17 than advice is governance. Governance without
18 responsibility and accountability is no
19 governance at all.
20 And I believe that elected district
21 governance bodies should be made accountable to
22 the parents and the public by having meaningful
23 responsibilities. And these responsibilities
24 should include, but not necessarily be limited
25 to, reviewing the district budget in consultation
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2 with parents and the public, setting district
3 level policy in consultation with parents and the
4 public, approving district level educational
5 plans, such as the current DCEP, district
6 comprehensive education plan, again in
7 consultation with parents and the public.
8 Providing opportunities for parents and other
9 members of the community to discuss their
10 concerns in public settings, contributing to the
11 evaluation of the district's Chief Supervisory
12 Officer, currently the District Superintendent,
13 again, in consultation with parents and the
14 public and probably most important of all and I
15 think this is an aspect of the current community
16 school boards, that needs a great deal more work,
17 working to improve the governance capabilities of
18 site based school governance bodies such as
19 school leadership teams that has never been a
20 responsibility of community school boards as they
21 exist now and whatever community body emerges as
22 a result of your thinking and your
23 recommendations, I hope among it's
24 responsibilities is to work to improve the
25 governance capabilities of parents who don't
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2 necessarily have the experience to the training
3 and the education to take full advantage of the
4 vehicles that they have for expressing their
5 concerns.
6 Truth is that any governance system
7 that provides appropriate checks and balances can
8 be made to work. And what I would hope is that
9 the Task Force would recommend that the
10 chancellor have some accountability to whatever
11 mid-level governance bodies emerge to make sure
12 that they work. I've had relatively brief
13 experience filling a vacancy on a community
14 school board, but in talking to my colleagues on
15 the board and other people who have served in
16 community school boards, as far as I can tell, no
17 chancellor has ever consulted any school board on
18 any issue except for strictly mandated by law.
19 And as far, in my two years on
20 community school board 3, I think as far as the
21 chancellor was concerned, we could have been
22 playing tiddlywinks and it wouldn't have been
23 made any difference. There is no vehicle of
24 communication between school boards which are
25 supposed to, as currently conceived, are supposed
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2 to represent the interests of the public at the
3 community level and the chancellor's office.
4 And until the emerging legislation addresses that
5 particular issue, no governance body will
6 succeed. The community -- the replacement body
7 for community school boards shouldn't just be the
8 place where parents can come and express their
9 grievances. It should be a genuine vehicle of
10 communication between schools to school board or
11 whatever the entity will be, and chancellor to
12 school board, a three way kind of conversation.
13 That is not built into the current structure. It
14 is not built into the current structure in any
15 city that is under Mayoral control and it is a
16 very dangerous, I think, trend.
17 So I would hope that the Task Force
18 recommend that the chancellor consult regularly
19 with mid-level district governance bodies on
20 matters of educational policy, on chief executive
21 mid-level appointments and in any other areas it
22 really that really pertain to the good operations
23 of the school district. My last question really
24 is, you know, to think about -- can we think
25 about what we might lose if we create structures
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2 that encourage the public to abdicate it's
3 responsibilities for education. Under Mayoral
4 control in every Mayoral control city, public
5 support and public funds for schools has
6 generally eroded. It reflects voters sentiment
7 that the schools are now the mayor's
8 responsibility and not there's.
9 You need to look no further than
10 this November's elections, where voters all over
11 the country turned down a repealed school funding
12 issues specifically in areas like Cleveland,
13 while voting to retain Mayoral control.
14 Governance matters. Public representation
15 affirms the communal responsibility for
16 educating all children. I hope that you will
17 recommend that we keep the public in public
18 education. Thank you.
19 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Thank you very
20 much. Mr. Friedman.
21 MR. FRIEDMAN: You mentioned some
22 functions, I'm just curious, you talked about
23 reviewing the budgets, you talked about
24 (inaudible.) Do you envision these new policy
25 boards to be just advisory in nature or to have
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2 actual budgetary or authority in hiring or having
3 part in hiring a superintendent?
4 MS. PRAGER: I think it would be
5 unfortunate if they are only advisory in nature.
6 That is if they're only like the current
7 substitute for the old Board of Education
8 advisory only to the chancellor, because advice
9 is not governance I think any more than
10 centralized control is really governance.
11 Governance suggest a system of checks and
12 balances within the general umbrella of control.
13 You know the question really is, should the
14 entity control make decisions about budget you
15 know, probably not, because of past history. I
16 don't think it will ever happen, I'm just I'm
17 just being prudent about it.
18 But in terms of -- even under the
19 current system, community school boards still
20 have the capacity to ask questions about the
21 budget, related to the district comprehensive
22 educational plan. You don't need to control the
23 budget to in a sense make sure that the budget is
24 responsive to educational policy. You don't need
25 to control the budget to be able to ask the
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2 superintendent, you know, but we're where have
3 you allocated money for dual language programs.
4 How is that going to work. Or you know how have
5 you allocated money for faculty development to
6 create better dual language programs or better
7 math programs or whatever the educational policy
8 is. So I think the control over dollars and
9 cents doesn't matter as much as the ability to
10 ask the questions about how does -- how you're
11 going to spend the money relate to the
12 educational out comes that we've all agreed upon.
13 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Virginia Kee.
14 MS. KEE: Ms. Prager, I was thinking
15 comparing the New York City System for example,
16 in city government, where we have community
17 planning boards. Their role is only advisory. At
18 the same time they seem to have impact on
19 whatever happens in the community. At the same
20 time the advisory board seems to be much more
21 important and the advice heated. So, if something
22 is turned down at the planning board, then the
23 fact that it goes to a borough board or anything
24 after that, and all these members are appointed
25 by the counsel members, by the borough president
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2 and I was wondering if you thought such a
3 structure would possibly work in education and
4 governance?
5 MS. PRAGER: I would say community
6 planning boards, I don't think the analogy is
7 exact or equivalent, only in the sense that
8 community planning boards are only quasi
9 advisory. Whether as a result of precedent or
10 history, what a community planning board says has
11 an impact on what happens at the borough level.
12 What happens at community school boards now has
13 very little impact. And unless you create an
14 entity that has that kind of meaningful
15 relationship, that's why I talk I think about
16 finding away of bridging, especially in a system
17 which is going to even more centralized,
18 centrally controlled than ever before, how are
19 you really going to provide for checks and
20 balances on -- in school governance. Everything
21 cannot come from the Tweed Courthouse. And the
22 local entity whatever it's going to be, cannot be
23 just a place that keeps angry parents away from
24 the steps of the Tweed Courthouse because they
25 are angry.
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2 One of the things that's happen in
3 Boston, and it's kind of an amusing aside, is
4 that because parents have no place to go, they go
5 to the Boston City Council. And the city counsel
6 is getting a bit fed up with that, as you can
7 well imagine. I mean, they show up unmask at
8 city council meetings with their particular
9 complaints grievances and whatever, which
10 probably, you know, that is not -- I mean it's
11 just it's not healthy. It doesn't make parents
12 feel like there is -- the system is responsive to
13 them, it makes them feel like they have to go to
14 a political -- find a political solution to what
15 is basically an academic or educational problem.
16 But will parents come to whatever the entity is
17 going to be -- merging entity is going to be
18 unless it is a body that can do something for
19 them.
20 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Well we thank you
21 very much for your thoughtful comments, MS.
22 Prager and for representing so well the advocates
23 for public representation. So you have
24 represented your group that is involved in
25 representation very well. Thank you so much.
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2 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Esther
3 Gonzales, a member of community school board 6.
4 I'm sorry Sandra Rivers, First Vice -President of
5 Community School Board 5. While Sandra is coming
6 down I just want to acknowledge Council Member
7 Bob Jackson, who is here with us. Council Member
8 Jackson spoke this afternoon. As many of you
9 know he was really the force behind the campaign
10 for fiscal equity law suit. A former school
11 board, a parent and now a Council Member, very
12 committed to our education system, thanks for
13 joining us again tonight Council Member. Sandra
14 Rivers.
15 MS. RIVERS: Good evening. I don't
16 think that there's should be any question
17 whatsoever about community control. Community
18 school districts in New York City. For the
19 legislature's move to attempt to destroy the
20 community control, it would be -- it would make a
21 million children plus in New York City and their
22 families -- and our families, the only population
23 in this state without an elected representation
24 with respect to education. It's really quite
25 ludicrous to not, to either repeal that
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2 legislation or establish community based
3 governance structures that are elected.
4 Appointments never work. They're always
5 political.
6 Without some form of -- without real
7 democracy, parents and communities would not have
8 any kind of voice. So elections, elected
9 representatives at the local level is a no
10 brainer. And just to reiterate previous comments
11 that every other municipality in this is it state
12 has elected advisory boards with respect to
13 school boards. It really ranks -- and it smacks
14 up racism for New York City to be the only
15 municipality in this state where the school
16 officials are not elected.
17 In terms of the functioning of
18 community school boards. The bodies like this
19 need to find out what school boards do and what
20 school board members do. For the most part, you
21 don't know what we do. And we do a lot of what
22 the first gentleman spoke about. That liaison
23 that advocacy, if we are not there, it is not
24 going to happen. As the woman noted just
25 previous to me, without some kind of
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2 intermediary, local representation, where
3 parents can go and voice their concerns and
4 complaints and very often get some meaningful
5 response, as opposed to unanswered telephones or
6 coming to city hall, now we can imagine how
7 effective that would be. Really kind of zero.
8 The community school boards need to be have very
9 clear cut responsibilities. Again, those
10 outlined by the previous speaker are a good
11 beginning. And consume a tremendous amount of
12 voluntary school board members time.
13 And if superintendents don't have to
14 be responsive and accountable to a local
15 representative body, they put anything together,
16 we have absolutely no faith whatsoever in a
17 central Board of Education or the Mayor's office
18 who knows very little about education to know
19 what should be in those district education plans.
20 Many school board members do know. We know what
21 should be in those plans. We know how those
22 plans should be put together and we know how to
23 look at them. Vis-a-vis the out comes. Most
24 people in city government do not know how to do
25 that.
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2 Community school boards should get
3 concrete, material, resource support, that is
4 training, that is things like an office, office
5 support and the training is particularly
6 important. Most people don't know how to be
7 policy makers. But most people can learn how to
8 be good policy makers. And there has not been a
9 commitment on the part of the city or the estate
10 or anywhere else to provide real training and
11 monitoring of that training and how parents and
12 school leadership team members are benefiting
13 from that training and implementing what they
14 learn from training. That has not happened.
15 One of the most critical components
16 of truly effective local governance is training.
17 People learn how to be governors, how to govern.
18 I think that -- and providing tools. We have the
19 education community has a plethora of tools as to
20 how you assess everything that goes on in
21 education. Local, governors at the community
22 level, district level and at the school base
23 level, need to get those tools. They need to
24 have those tools so they can have tools that help
25 them assess how do you look at a curriculum, how
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2 do you look an education plan. How do you look
3 at a budget? But they need to be trained in how
4 to do that.
5 I think those will kind of sum up my
6 comments. I do have a few, I know while I
7 realize this forum is not focused on the issue of
8 petty (inaudible.) There are now a plethora of
9 education programs and models from within New
10 York State and across this country that have
11 documented success with urban student
12 populations. The multi-cultural anti-racist
13 curriculum that is in use in Portland Oregon and
14 Michigan are two such programs. Yet in spite of
15 this wealth of culturally competent petty ghagi,
16 there are only one or two such programs that have
17 ever gotten even a budging wink from the New York
18 State Education Department or the New York City
19 Board of Education.
20 Furthermore over the past 20 years
21 the New York State Education Department and the
22 Board of Regions along with the Board of
23 Education of New York City, have repeatedly
24 ignored carefully and pain stakenly developed
25 multi-cultural, anti-racist curricula that have
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2 been provided to them. These curricula will
3 provide New York children with truthful and
4 comprehensive and academically sound education
5 about the totality of the history and pertinent
6 facts about the populations of this country and
7 of the world. It is oxymoron to persist with a
8 (inaudible) that purports to educate children
9 while at the same time, time daily impuning and
10 grinding their dignity self esteem and the very
11 sense of themselves into oblivion. That is -- I
12 feel very strongly that is very important part of
13 governing education.
14 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: First all I thank
15 you very much for your testimony Ms. Rivers. I
16 just wanted to make one comment, really a matter
17 of fact, which I think that ought to be a part of
18 the record. I don't necessarily disagree with
19 anything that you said, so I don't want to you
20 take this comment to be a disagreement with your
21 basic thesis. But as a matter of the fact,
22 probably about 45 percent of the people who live
23 in the State of the New York live in cities where
24 they don't elect their school boards now. New
25 York City is one of five cities that is
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2 considered a dependent school district. What that
3 means is that the people themselves don't vote
4 for the school budgets.
5 The city government provides money
6 for the school budgets, so consequently New York
7 City, Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse and Yonkers,
8 the five largest cities in the state for the most
9 part don't elect their school boards. So though
10 I don't necessarily disagree with anything that
11 you said and I don't want these comment to be
12 construed as such, I just wanted the record to
13 reflect that New York City, if it ended up, if it
14 ended up that New York City didn't have school
15 board elections, most of the other large cities
16 in the state, because of the same peculiar
17 circumstance that the city government provides
18 the fund for education, they also do not, for the
19 most part vote on school board members.
20 But your comments nonetheless are
21 very compelling. Questions?
22 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: I'll ask you
23 the same question I asked the previous school
24 board member. What are the important roles that
25 need to take place at the local level, you also
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2 mentioned advocacy as a very important function,
3 what are the other functions that school boards
4 perform today or should -- or some local entity,
5 whatever that entity might be that we create,
6 what should be done locally?
7 MS. RIVERS: Locally there has to
8 be, you know, certain reiterate what the previous
9 person outlined, reviewing the school budget I
10 strongly agree with her comments that no we don't
11 have to control the budget to hold it's the
12 superintendent accountable for how that budget is
13 spent. So and we school board members or local
14 governing bodies should review the district
15 education plan. They should hold the
16 superintendent accountable for really every
17 aspect of the process. The superintendent should
18 know that they have to report to someone,
19 somebody locally for the educational process. So
20 when the test scores are low, they need to be
21 able to explain to somebody locally why this is.
22 What did you do to -- that was different than
23 last year to make this outcome different?
24 I think the school boards need to
25 have a very direct and structured responsibility
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2 with respect to making sure the school leadership
3 teams function, right now most of the them are a
4 joke. I mean that's just a fact and they
5 shouldn't be. But it's at that local level that
6 whether there's close enough contact between the
7 local governing body members and parents and the
8 schools, to walk into a school and talk to the
9 principal and find out or the head of school
10 leadership team and get the specific as to what
11 kind of training have you gotten this year in how
12 to do your job as a school leadership team
13 member. What was the content? Did you get help
14 in arriving at a plan for ^ your ^ you're school
15 for this year? Or did you not? So those are
16 some of the responsibilities of local governing
17 bodies.
18 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Thank you.
19 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Mr. Friedman.
20 MR. FRIEDMAN: I just want to make a
21 comment. I just wanted you to know that several
22 of us are former school board members. We spent
23 many many years on school boards so we have first
24 hand information on just how hard and dedicated
25 my belief a vast majority of school members are.
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2 And we actually do know the inner day to day
3 workings of what school board members do, what
4 their responsibilities are, what they were, how
5 they changed over the years, so you made a
6 comment that this body was not aware of it, we're
7 going to be sharing first hand the several us who
8 have been on school boards our information, our
9 life experience with the rest members.
10 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Well, we thank
11 you very very much Ms. Rivers, for being here.
12 Your testimony I think was very very clear, very
13 concise and certainly reflects your commitment
14 and experience in this area. Thank you very much.
15 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Esther
16 Gonzales, not here. Frank Alvarez, member of
17 community school board 6, not here. Isabel
18 Navaro, I think they are traveling together the 3
19 of them. Lillian Contrares, the 4 of them are
20 traveling together, they are all from school
21 board 6. Elizabeth Carson, Co-Founder of New York
22 City Hold Honest Open Logical Debate on
23 Mathematics Education Reform. I'm sure there's
24 an acronym to that is there.
25 MS. CARSON: Hold.
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2 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: And I've been
3 reminded that I was remiss, and this is no
4 reflection on Ms. Carson. I've been remising,
5 reminding the witness we are asking people to try
6 to confine their testimony to five minutes as was
7 indicate on the hearing notice, so that we can
8 hear from the maximum number of people and also
9 have some dialogue with some of the witnesses.
10 Hello.
11 MS. CARSON: Hi, thank you and I
12 appreciate the time you're giving to this theory,
13 a very important process. I'm a parent and I've
14 been a parent for 15 years now and as soon as my
15 son entered Pre-school, I entered parent
16 involvement in advocacy, I was writing grants for
17 the director of his private school, literally the
18 first week he began in school. I am incredibly
19 impassioned with education and I think that what
20 we're doing here is the future of our country.
21 It is so incredibly important. Governance I have
22 feeling that governance is not the only issue
23 that we need to be talking about, but we're here
24 and we're talking about it and we have to decide
25 now to what to do with the replacement of the
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2 school boards and so I will speak to those
3 issues.
4 I've been a Parent Association
5 President, Vice President, Fund-raising Chair,
6 School Leadership Team Chair, I've assisted
7 directors, as I've referred to already. I've
8 been a member of the United Parents Association,
9 the Presidents Council -- Executive Member of the
10 President's Council, I've attended school board
11 meetings CPAC meetings, campaigned for fiscal
12 equity, public engagement sessions, opening and
13 closing sessions of the court proceedings, and on
14 and on and on. I love this stuff and I find it
15 fascinating. I also find it incredibly
16 incredibly frustrating as a parent. And so when
17 you're thinking about how to replace school
18 boards, I guess the best thing that I can offer
19 you would be my experiences as an involved
20 parent, some of the strengths, some of the
21 weaknesses at the school and the district and
22 even the city level with the systems that are
23 already in place. I think we have plenty of fine
24 organizations in place, including school boards,
25 by the way but I'm opposed to them being
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2 abolished but your going to replace them with
3 something similar, it seems to me, it just will
4 be better. We will have district level
5 governance.
6 So at the school level and the
7 district level and the city level, as Carolyn
8 Prager has eluded to, there must be an
9 orchestrated interaction between these bodies.
10 We have Mayoral control, okay. But the Mayor
11 can't control and the chancellor can't work
12 without being in touch with and informed by the
13 expertise it and the experiences that all the
14 other levels all the way down to the school. And
15 conversely, I think that the teachers and the
16 administrators and the parents are dependent in
17 many ways for the expertise and the knowledge and
18 the administration at the top. So we need to
19 work together and we need to share experience and
20 expertise, openly, publicly, logically. Just as
21 I feel it's important in the debate over
22 mathematics education, which is at the heart of
23 my city-wide organization.
24 So at the school level, we have
25 parent association, school leadership teams which
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2 are wonderful. The problems with them seem to be
3 around the limitations of parents to be involved.
4 This could have to do with time constraints, it
5 is could have to do with language barriers, it
6 could have to do with relationships with the
7 school, myriad of problems, some of them are
8 related to the position of the school
9 administration themselves. And you see this in
10 the school leadership teams as well. There has
11 to be a buy in at the school level and the
12 district level and at the city level for parent
13 involvement. There has to be a reason to do
14 this. And this sharing of responsibility and
15 governance isn't going to work simply because
16 it's legislated, it's been legislated and it's
17 not working you heard over and over that school
18 leadership teams are not working.
19 We have school boards, everything
20 about the school boards the election, the
21 advisory, used to have teeth, used to hire the
22 superintendents used to decide budget, all of
23 this is very good it was legislated and failed.
24 Part of it has to do with buy in. At the school
25 levels some principals don't want the parents
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2 values and standards to be respected. Teachers
3 don't have time for the school leadership team,
4 teachers are not interested in what parents have
5 to bring to the table. It restricts the
6 involvement. So we have to think now, how can we
7 make school leadership teams, which obviously are
8 very interested in, I can tell that they're going
9 to play a part in this district governance, how
10 can we make school leadership teams something
11 people want to invest in. How can we make a
12 district level governance system something that
13 the community buys into, believes is important,
14 it's actually going to make an difference in the
15 instruction, and the education of our children.
16 How can we do this, obviously if
17 three percent of the population turns out for
18 school board elections, it's not because they
19 don't care about education. It's because they
20 find it to be completely waste of their time.
21 Why is it that school board meetings in most
22 districts are attended by so very very few
23 people, it's not because parents don't want to be
24 involved. It's not because they aren't aware and
25 want to give, it's because they are ignored if
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2 they go, many don't even know the school board's
3 exist. They don't know what they do and on and
4 on.
5 So, we need to figure out what is
6 reasonable for school leadership teams and
7 district level teams to do. What is realistic to
8 expect of parents and teachers at a governing
9 committee. What can be done. How can they best
10 contribute to governance. And I submit to you for
11 example that at the school level asking parents
12 to write a CEP is too much. What can we ask at
13 a district level. I submit to you that a school
14 board cannot make the kind of important decisions
15 they need to make right now unless there is some
16 sort of vehicle for informing them, for educating
17 them in ways that they have not been educated.
18 They sit there even when they did have powers and
19 they're at mercy of the administration for their
20 information.
21 Well, now I'm not sure that many
22 district administration is necessarily want to be
23 held accountable by school boards. So you have
24 to consider them. The buy in there may not be
25 there at district level, and so how can we
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2 encourage superintendents and district
3 administration to want to participate in some
4 sort of the shared governance with school boards.
5 The question is that. I mean, we have to
6 understand first what can a district -- what can
7 a district do.
8 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: We can hear you
9 fine.
10 MS. CARSON: I know but I'm hunched.
11 What can -- what will Mayor and Chancellor allow
12 districts to do? What is the appropriate for
13 them to decide? And what is not? And I submit
14 that it has to be shared again between the
15 districts, the schools and the chancellor. It
16 cannot be a top down administration with
17 decisions made in silence as I am seeing
18 indications of now with the working groups in the
19 children first (inaudible) it cannot be that. We
20 have to share experiences and expertise. In some
21 way this has to work and I don't have answers for
22 how this can work and you can set up a system and
23 I think you will.
24 You're going to have elected and
25 appointed people at the district level, I imagine
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2 you're going to try to exploit the school
3 leadership teams to find the best parent
4 representatives. You're going to try to involve
5 the communities in some way. Much more than the
6 school leadership teams allow, perhaps there will
7 be an outside election for some of them. You'll
8 allow some appointments by the superintendent.
9 All of these people will sit together at district
10 level, but unless we can some have some clarity
11 on exactly what we're going to allow districts to
12 decide now, I don't know how we can be talking
13 about a structure to govern what we haven't
14 decided we will be governing.
15 And it's very frustrating as a
16 parent to want so much to give, and I have given
17 a lot, and feel that I got so little in return.
18 I don't feel that I've had much of a positive
19 impact at all. And in my math campaign I've
20 literally had to go to the press, I've appealed
21 to my legislators, I've appealed all the way to
22 the federal government, I've engaged people
23 across the city, but I still feel like I'm on the
24 edge. I'm are appealing to some body of people
25 making decisions. I don't understand how it's
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2 working. I don't know how to involve myself and
3 I am a model parent in terms of someone you would
4 want involved engaged willing to contribute.
5 If I can't do it, who can? Which
6 parents are we going to talk to? How can we set
7 this up so that a lot of people, across the
8 spectrum, parents of every economic social,
9 racial group are involved? How can we engage the
10 community? I don't have the answers, but you
11 better figure them out. We have to. And I
12 think, just in closing, that we have -- all of
13 the system are in place, it's just that we don't
14 seem to be honestly using them. We have school
15 leadership teams, we have parent associations
16 we're supposed to have district leadership teams.
17 We have all these wonderful systems in place and
18 yet they're not working. How do we make people
19 do the right thing?
20 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Good place to
21 pause. Do we have any questions. I think you
22 bowled us over. The points you've raised are the
23 central points and I'm glad that you have
24 provided a crystallization and of focus, because
25 these are in fact the issues that we'll be
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2 grappling with, and I think that you are closing
3 remarks about your level of commitment and your
4 involvement and yet you have been frustrated is a
5 good thing for us to reflect on. As we try to --
6 as we go through the hearings and our
7 deliberations one by one, try to answer your
8 questions as we come up with our recommendations.
9 So we thank you very much. Thank you for being
10 here and thank you very much for the way you have
11 focused us very well on the task ahead of us. Mr.
12 Levin.
13 MR. LEVIN: If I can just make a
14 comment, coming not from education but from the
15 entertainment business, we always try and figure
16 out how we can capture passion. And I think what
17 you've challenged us to do is to try and
18 institutionalize the commitment and passion and
19 that you represent and I commend you for it.
20 MS CARSON: Thank you.
21 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Rosemarie
22 Seabrook, parent of community school board 5.
23 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Again I'll
24 encourage the witnesses to try to confine their
25 remarks, I know it's hard to do so but try to
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2 confine your remarks to about 5 minutes.
3 MS. SEABROOK: Good evening, as was
4 stated my name is Rose Seabrook. I too like the
5 previous testifier, as a parent as well as member
6 of community school board. In addition to that
7 I'm member of a number of other organization that
8 are education related. I'll just simply read my
9 statement and I believe it's within your five
10 minute limitation.
11 The job of educating the children of
12 any nation is as necessary and crucial as is the
13 job of it's military. While the greatest minds
14 of the country have been able to build a better
15 killing machine through weapons of mass
16 destruction, those same minds or their education
17 equivalent have not been able it equal that
18 superiority through a better teaching machine.
19 We're here today for what is being called
20 governance. But we all know that it's the
21 education of our children that brings us here.
22 Most know the history of community school boards
23 and how they came about. The brew ha-ha was
24 about teaching and learning in communities of
25 color and other poor communities or communities
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2 of the disenfranchised.
3 In it's infancy and as a result of
4 political negligence and apathy, community school
5 boards are faced with death, right or wrong, to
6 ensure public satisfaction with this new system
7 of public education. I recommend a consumer
8 initiated process of adjudication. Other licensed
9 professionals is subject to I process of review
10 and so should our educational professionals.
11 Local disciplinary committees, made up of
12 community and education professionals should
13 serve as a board of ethics similar to that of the
14 office of professional medical conduct, our
15 civilian complaint review board, and/or CUNY'S
16 student faculty disciplinary committees.
17 Details aside, these bodies must act
18 in all do haste, as our children are not for ever
19 young and we only have but one opportunity to get
20 it right educationally. This body must act from
21 a code of ethics, not arbitrarily and their
22 rulings must be binding. In addition, our
23 discussions on governance seem to focus
24 singularly on elementary and middle schools with
25 an obvious mission. That of high schools, as if
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2 our high schools are basions of profundity, they
3 are left out of the equation. This is a clear
4 example of the sins of omission. If we are to be
5 honest, we know that the record of our high
6 schools, though not reported, are not
7 commendable. Because of this, I recommend that
8 they too be subject to this board of ethics.
9 Yesterday I was happy to learn that
10 come fall 2003 children in failing school
11 districts will have all of the city's public
12 schools available to them if there is a desire to
13 move on. I welcome this change, but without
14 being too critical in my eyes, this is more of a
15 trojan horse. Because as we know, all of the
16 "good schools" have limited seats and waiting
17 lifts. Let us suppose that there are seats to
18 accommodate this flight. Then there's the
19 question of what do we do with the "bad schools".
20 This leads to my next point of available
21 resources.
22 I'm reminded of a former governor
23 who at time of budget woes made it clear that no
24 city or state agency would go unaffected when he
25 said, there are no sacred cows. I felt then as
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2 you do now and as confirmed by the campaign for
3 fiscal equity's law suit, New York city schools
4 have been subject to short thrift and short
5 change for decades and far too long. I'm not
6 economist in this age of information overload, I
7 may have missed something but I find myself
8 wondering whatever happened to the city's
9 surplus. I'm more than familiar with the events
10 of September 11, 2001, but I'm also aware that
11 funds came pouring into our great city from a
12 number of public and private sources. With that
13 said, there ought to be a sacred cow. And because
14 of decades of under funding public education in
15 New York City ought to be it.
16 More importantly, any measures put
17 in place will require adequate funding. I'm over
18 joyed that teachers are finally getting
19 recognition as the professionals that they are
20 and that compensation for them is a bit more
21 responsible. But everyone in New York City knows
22 that the good schools are the ones where parent
23 involvement goes above and beyond the norm.
24 These parents bring supplies, contribute enormous
25 sums of money and/or time. Are sophisticated and
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2 well connected enough to write and get grants and
3 so on. These school have been featured in the
4 New York Times at some point or other for all
5 their innovations. Meanwhile areas that are not
6 so fortunate faultier to say the least.
7 Now is the time to bring equity and
8 fairness to New York City public schools. Every
9 child should have the same opportunity y as any
10 other child in the public school system. Our
11 great city and country deserve weapons of mass
12 construction, our children. For they are our
13 only hope for a brighter, humane and more
14 intelligent tomorrow. Let us strive to create a
15 system of education that is as formidable as our
16 (inaudible.) Thank you.
17 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Very good. Do
18 we have questions. It was an excellent
19 presentation and we thank you very much and as a
20 member of school board 5, I think there is an
21 example of -- a clear example of the better part
22 the local community school boards as they
23 currently exist. So we want to thank you very
24 very much for your, I think very well constructed
25 and very well delivered testimony. Thank you.
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2 MS. SEABROOK: Thank you.
3 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Evelyn
4 Rodriguez, Parent Association, UPA delegate and
5 Title one representative.
6 MS. RODRIGUEZ: Hi, good evening. I
7 wasn't quite prepared to speak today but since I
8 see the attendance is bit on the low end I think
9 I'm brave enough to say a few things.
10 Mr. Earnest Clayton encouraged me to speak today,
11 so I jotted down a few notes as I was listening
12 to the other speakers and once again my name is
13 Evelyn Rodriguez and I'm a former PA President
14 I'm also UPA delegate for my district school at
15 P.S. 153. And I was recently voted as title one
16 representative for Jackie Onasis High School. I
17 have four children in the public schools. Two in
18 Manhattan High Schools, Environmental Studies,
19 Jackie Onansis and two in elementary, P.S. 153 as
20 I mentioned before and P.S. 111.
21 I wanted for my children to go into
22 Catholic schools because I grew up in Catholic
23 schools, since I was in third grade. And the
24 main reason why they didn't go there was because
25 of lack of money. But as the years go by, I have
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2 more belief in the public system. And I have a
3 good feeling about all of the four schools that
4 my children attend. I started at district 12 in
5 the Bronx and I moved eight years ago to district
6 11 also in the Bronx. There's a difference
7 between both schools -- both districts. One is
8 more educationally, I would not use the word
9 upscale, but the scores are higher at district 11
10 in comparison to district 12.
11 But I also noticed that in both
12 schools parent involvement is low, it doesn't
13 make a difference whether the scores were higher
14 in one district from another. Parent involvement
15 has been low in both districts and the reason I
16 think is because parents see that sometimes this
17 is a waste. It's a waste when the government and
18 people continue to throw, or the media continue
19 to throw at us that the parents do not have any
20 control over their own children. And just as we
21 continue to say that the community school boards
22 are not to performing properly, we're also
23 telling our parents that we are not performing
24 properly. That we are not good advocates for our
25 own challenge children, which is kind of
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2 ridiculous because only we know our own children.
3 Only we know our weakness and their weakness and
4 their strengths and that's the only way we can
5 advocate for them, by knowing this.
6 I believe that the community school
7 boards should continue. We have a strong
8 community school board, district 11 very strong
9 community school board. We recently had two
10 festivals in the recent two years. We also held
11 a youth conference, focusing on teen violence
12 which is a big issue. When we decided to do this
13 youth conference, I decided to do research
14 regarding teen violence and it was amazing to see
15 that it was wasn't just the boys that were
16 involved in violence, we also have violence among
17 the girls. And we can see that in the prison
18 system how there are more females in the prison
19 system.
20 But also, there is a difference
21 between the sexes. Even though a lost us believe
22 there isn't there's equal opportunity for all, I
23 have four children and I was growing up thinking
24 that and I always thought it was stereo type for
25 us to think that there is no difference, but
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2 there is. There is also a difference the way we
3 handle violence and the way we create violence.
4 And the only way we can see that is by having
5 more conferences, by having more youth
6 involvement and we forget when we're sitting here
7 that our children are the focus, then our
8 children should be the ones that we address. And
9 we ask what the problems in the school are.
10 I recently about two weeks ago was
11 going to Jersey because all my family members are
12 in Jersey. And I was speaking to my nephew who
13 lives in Jersey and I was speaking to my son and
14 they both were on the bus and my and I asked him
15 questions about education, I wanted to seat
16 difference between the Jersey schools and New
17 York you know, and basically I just want to hear
18 what they had to say. My son continues to say
19 that even though he is 15 years old there is
20 still no soaps in the bathrooms. And even though
21 he is 15 years old, he does know that like we all
22 tend to do, we all tend to adopt to our
23 environment, we know which bathrooms have the
24 toilet tissue and which bathroom have the soap
25 and the running water.
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2 So they have learned to adjust. But
3 he also said I didn't know what a semi colon was
4 until I went to ninth grade. Ninth Grade. My son
5 is a great writer. I love his work. I love his
6 writing. He doesn't have the self esteem that I
7 have for him. He says he doesn't write very
8 well. But like he said, he didn't know what a
9 semi colon was until he went to ninth grade. He
10 didn't know how to use it, he knew what it was,
11 but he didn't know how to use it. And I think
12 that's a darn shame, in ninth grade to finally
13 realize how to use it, and of course now he
14 understands. He's in 10th grade.
15 It's not -- and he also added that
16 it's not until you get to college perhaps that
17 you develop your own writing style. He's been
18 being told constantly in the schools that you
19 have to develop a style, but he doesn't see that.
20 That's going to develop right now. You cannot
21 tell a child that today and tomorrow you're going
22 to develop your own style. I see that, but I'm
23 older now. But when I was his age I didn't see
24 that myself. And I believe that when you do have
25 your own style, that you don't care about the
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2 critics, your work is just as important as anyone
3 else, there isn't anything better than there's or
4 anything worse, as long as you have your own
5 style and you believe in that style that is what
6 you're going to produce.
7 You can't be a writer, because -- a
8 good writer because you have to find our own
9 style. You don't think about that when you write.
10 They should teach you how to develop instead of
11 telling you to read and to write more. That goes
12 back to the issue of trying to put your heart
13 into school. It teaches you basic stuff that
14 you don't have to put your heart into it. You
15 /TKAEPBT can't develop unless you put effort into
16 it.
17 Also he mentioned he's been pretty
18 inspired by some of his teachers. There's
19 teachers that are strict graders and there are
20 teachers that also give suggestions. Those are
21 the teachers that he admires the most but for the
22 most part my son has not had any problems with
23 any particular teacher. He has a 96 point
24 average and he does very well, and I'm very proud
25 of him, he's well rounded. Now I think part of
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2 the that is because I'm involved. I have four
3 children. I am not going to say that all my
4 children are great academically. But they do
5 not go below the 80 average. Some of them like
6 to skimp over homework and sometimes I do not
7 check their assignments every evening. But I
8 think all of us do that. And let me try to go
9 over what I've jotted down.
10 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: If can you begin
11 to conclude we'll have to begin to move on.
12 Thank you.
13 MS. RODRIGUEZ: All right. On
14 school leadership teams, if we had training prior
15 to being on the school leadership teams or while
16 we're on the school leadership teams, perhaps we
17 can work on the comprehensive education plan
18 early on, not in April. We need to have the
19 parents have a copy of the pass review not just
20 in a condensed version of the school report card.
21 I mean, There are a lot of the different things
22 that I think we all know what is wrong with the
23 schools or what is right about the schools. We
24 need to have less pride in our own school and
25 look on at the things that are working in every
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2 other school in different categories.
3 We need our parents to continue to
4 be advocates. We don't need to remove the school
5 leadership teams, we don't need to remove the
6 community school boards, we need to keep them
7 together. We need to continue to make parents
8 accountable for their action as well as make the
9 administration and the Mayor accountable for
10 there actions as well. Working together, I
11 guess that is the only way they're going to be
12 able to continue to have great performance in our
13 schools. Thank you and good evening.
14 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Thank you very
15 much. Questions? Well we thank you very much
16 and I know that your remarks were mostly
17 extemporaneous and I can understand why Ernest
18 Clayton wanted you to testify. You did it on
19 very short notice and you did it mostly just from
20 your heart and you did it very well and we thank
21 you very much.
22 MS. RODRIGUEZ: Thank you.
23 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Margaret
24 Dornbaum, Co-President PTA of P.S. 77 in district
25 2.
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2 MS. DORNBAUM: Good evening. I have
3 to start by saying that I'm so green about, first
4 of all, coming in front of you and also in front
5 of so many people who have been here for many
6 years and have been incredibly involved in the
7 system. So I've been sitting here very
8 overwhelmed and taking a lot of notes, so please
9 bear with me.
10 As you know, I'm Co-President of PTA
11 at the Lower Lab school in district 2. We have a
12 wonderful school. I've been there for three
13 years now and it's been an incredible experience.
14 I also am a graduate for district 26 and my
15 mother was the President of the PTA of my
16 elementary school. So I definitely believe as
17 some of the people up here and behind me have
18 talked about, the dedication and the want to make
19 this a successful city school system.
20 So what do I want to say? I do
21 believe that the governance and making that
22 bridge between a central and decentralized area
23 seems very important. I don't even understand
24 about all the governance. I'm very new into
25 understanding all of that. I had a school that
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2 was great and I think it's all the public schools
3 have served me very well and I plan to work to
4 make that happen for my children. So it does
5 make sense to me because I think one of the
6 things that work so incredibly well at the lab
7 school is that we bring together parent concerns,
8 administration concerns, teacher concerns
9 children concerns and we talk about them, we
10 spend a lot of time listening to then make
11 decisions that really make win win situations.
12 We do that with difficulty to say
13 the least, because we're challenged in terms of
14 financial, time, but we just keep asking for more
15 and more. And when you are surrounded by people
16 who are constantly giving more and more, you get
17 very inspired. So, I think that the more people
18 know about the successes and the more opportunity
19 there is to find out about what works, and
20 understanding why it works in that particular
21 community, then leads towards good solutions. So
22 when I'm listening I think that we have to have
23 more local involvement and so hearing about
24 school boards disappearing and looking for
25 replacement, we need to make sure that that
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2 involvement stays.
3 There's many reasons why people
4 don't get involved or can't get involved, but
5 they continuously need to be asked to be involved
6 and to be trained on how to get involved
7 effectively and well. I feel like I took a crash
8 course listening to all these different people's
9 involvement and I'm like now we have do this and
10 now we have to do that and I think that we're
11 only in the system so long and so we have to
12 train everybody quickly. I'm newly a member of
13 the SLT, this year. I have a position there
14 because of my role with the PTA. For two years I
15 didn't know what the SLT did and now I'm on there
16 expected to do many things. I think that have
17 you to learn quick and all of those groups need
18 to be empowered because they do know what's best
19 for their children, for there community and they
20 can work out solutions very well given the
21 empowerment to do so.
22 So improving the governance -- being
23 allowed to improve the SLT, I think is very very
24 good. And allowing for good models to ne able to
25 mentor and to be able to teach all of those
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2 different areas to grow stronger makes a big
3 difference. So I hope that in your inquiries and
4 in your efforts to improve the system, that
5 you're looking very hard at ones that you talked
6 about being very good, and that you see what
7 works and that you reach out to parents at all
8 different levels because there's many people here
9 and many people beyond here that I think will
10 contribute a lot. So to leave them out of the
11 process would be very damaging. And that's all I
12 have to say.
13 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Thank you very
14 much.
15 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Your school
16 works, why does it work?
17 MS. DORNBAUM: As I said, one of the
18 big things is that it's very much a partnership,
19 we have a very strong PTA, we have a very strong
20 SLT, except for myself who's new at it, but the
21 teacher involvement in it is very very strong and
22 they take it very seriously and go back to there
23 representative group and communicate. We have
24 wonder administration, our principal is so open
25 to suggestions and understanding and reaching
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2 out. To find solutions that work to a diverse
3 group that has all sorts of different needs. I
4 think that that's what works and as an example,
5 the fact that they also really support staff
6 development is very important because we in the
7 school realize how important it is. The PTA
8 funds more of it because we feel that strongly
9 about it. And we know that the results of having
10 good leaders as teachers, to mentors to the other
11 teaches, to bringing in new ideas is very
12 important.
13 If we didn't have the district
14 support in the curriculum and in allowing us to
15 work on molding the curriculum objective with the
16 needs and the potential of our students, then I
17 don't think we would be able to succeed. So
18 you've got a district that has some wonderful
19 support that it offers out to the school and then
20 you have a school community that comes together
21 both I mean all from the administration teacher,
22 and parent level to keep it working .
23 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: What are the
24 challenges your school leadership team faces.
25 MS. DORNBAUM: I think that one of
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2 the challenges is in prioritizing the programs
3 that we -- that everybody feels are important,
4 because there's limited resources and I think
5 that that's a particular area of concern. Also,
6 technology, I think is a challenge right now
7 because it's a big debate in terms of how much of
8 it, this is obviously a elementary school and
9 it's difficult to know how much should be brought
10 out to develop the curriculum. So those are a
11 couple of ones off the top of my head that are
12 key for us now.
13 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Thank you. Any
14 more questions? Mr. Clayton.
15 MR. CLAYTON: Yes. I just have a
16 point of clarification. Did you say that your
17 parent association supports professional
18 development for teachers?
19 MS. DORNBAUM: Yes. What we --
20 MR. CLAYTON: I mean in terms of
21 resources, you give them money for professional
22 development?
23 MS. DORNBAUM: Well, it's kind of
24 -- it's not direct. What it is, is that we
25 advocate that the staff development monies that
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2 come through the district are maintained to allow
3 for that to happen as opposed to all the various
4 cuts come in what are we going to lose and so we
5 support that to every extent possible that the
6 staff development monies are still are there for
7 the teachers. And you know, I think that that
8 would be the best way to describe it and
9 sometimes what that does mean though is if other
10 things get cut like supplies and things like
11 that, that the PTA would want to allocate money
12 to pay for that so that staff development can be
13 maintained.
14 MR. CLAYTON: And at the same time,
15 do you also bring in consultants to give the
16 parents any professional development.
17 MS. DORNBAUM: Let's see. I know
18 that there are -- I guess, yes, in the sense
19 that, for example, we at our PTA general meetings
20 we bring in different professionals. We don't
21 always pay for them, but we advocate and try to
22 get them to come, so we have somebody from math
23 development come in and does a presentation to
24 discuss with the parents because the turf is very
25 new to everybody and people want to understand
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2 that more. We also do some safety advocacy and
3 we bring that in. We also have brought in a
4 psychologist who can work with parents, would not
5 work directly with the children but would work
6 with parents to work out issues and have
7 discussions that might help in their development.
8 So I goes in many different ways we do do that.
9 CHAIRWOMAN THOMSON: Any other
10 questions? Thank you very much. Fiore Cruz,
11 Board Member of Dominican Women Development
12 Center and a parent.
13 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Let me just ask
14 whether the representatives from community board
15 6 have arrived. No, okay.
16 MS. CRUZ: Hello. I don't have much
17 to say but having seeing so much of a big crowd
18 so I figure that my opinion should be heard. I'm
19 a parent of a 13 year old boy in the public
20 school system. And my experience have been that
21 when you do have parent involvement in the
22 school, the school work better for the kid to
23 learn better and they receive a positive
24 experience. But mostly the New York City public
25 school, most of the kids are kids of African
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2 American and Latino descendance, the majority.
3 And from family that are hard working family,
4 many of them Immigrants and many of them don't
5 have the time to participate the way that they
6 would like to in their daily education process of
7 their kids. So I think that it's not that they
8 don't care, but it is that the time and matter of
9 economics too and taking care of other kids, that
10 prevent them from participating.
11 So I think that seeing what works
12 like the lady before me was saying, she have a
13 strong parent participation in school and that
14 you know that everything is working all right. I
15 think that we should encourage the parents to
16 participate more and to have a representative of
17 the parent association to have some more
18 responsibility and what they -- and their opinion
19 really count in how the school are run, because
20 my experience is that with the member of the
21 school board member is that they are there to
22 listen to some of the complaint that we might
23 have about the school, but they don't really have
24 any power to do nothing about it. You know. We
25 have complaints about certain things that happens
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2 in our school and people they say okay, okay,
3 we're listening but we really cannot do anything
4 because they don't have any power to make
5 whatever we think is not doing the right thing
6 for our kid, to do something about that.
7 So they just have to listen. So I
8 do think that they should have more power being
9 that they are elected by the public and we are
10 the public and these are our children. And even
11 some of us might not be able to really
12 participate in what's going on in our school, the
13 people who participating they should be able to
14 you know have a more power in what's going on
15 with our children.
16 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Any questions.
17 Mr. Clayton.
18 MR. CLAYTON: Very good, I like
19 that. So you think then that if there is a
20 replacement to the community school board then it
21 should have mor -- I don't want to use the term
22 power because a lot of people react to that and
23 you don't get anything done, but they should have
24 more responsibility, you're saying that the
25 alternative to the community school board should
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2 have more responsibility that they can carry out
3 concerns that parents express to them.
4 MS. CRUZ: Right. That they should
5 be able to act open with the what's going on with
6 a parent, like if I complain about something they
7 should be able to follow that through and really
8 make a difference in what's going on because you
9 go over there and say this is what's happening,
10 this is my son, I don't know my son but my
11 friend's kid too, it's not all about my son but
12 it's about my friend kid too, it's about my whole
13 -- the community the kids in the community, I'm
14 considering about all of them. So how can you
15 really make a difference if a parent complains
16 saying is not being, you know, he's not really
17 learning what he's supposed to learn or being
18 productive. They should say how they can make a
19 difference, you know.
20 MR. CLAYTON: Now who do you see
21 should be on that committee?
22 MS. CRUZ: Well you know, I think
23 that parents should be more -- some parent who
24 have been participating in what's going on in the
25 school and people who are educated too, who have
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2 some kids in the system too, and they had worked
3 in the system they have experience of having
4 their kid in public school and having the kids be
5 successful. And just you know people from the
6 public who are really committed to giving the
7 children a good education, making them productive
8 citizen so they can make a positive contribution
9 to the society. Because if the kids are not
10 excited about school, they're not really going to
11 be learning, you know just to be in the school
12 that they are excited they have a passion that
13 they're going there and they're going to learn
14 not that they're bored or they don't feel they're
15 really being treat with respect and like they
16 should want them to become something positive.
17 MR. CLAYTON: Thank you.
18 CHAIRMAN SANDERS: Well we thank you
19 very much for being here. That completes our
20 list for Manhattan. This Task Force will be
21 traveling to Queens on Thursday. We will be at
22 Queens Borough Hall in room 213, which is on
23 Queens Boulevard in Union Turnpike. That's this
24 Thursday at 10:00 and then again at 6:00 on
25 Thursday and then the following Thursday we'll be
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2 traveling to the Bronx and then in January on
3 January the 6, Staten Island, and January the 16
4 Brooklyn. So I thank -- first of all, I thank
5 very much the Task Force members, I think all the
6 Task Force members were here at one point during
7 the day and about half were here for all day.
8 And our staff who did a great job, our
9 stenographer whose fingers are about to fall off
10 and most of all to the witnesses who were here,
11 many of whom almost all day as well to inform us
12 of your views. I think it was very successful
13 opening day and I think we'll build on the
14 successes as we go along thank you all very much.
15 (Time noted 8:00)
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2 CERTIFICATION
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6 I, EDWARD LETO, a Notary
7 Public in and for the State of New
8 York, do hereby certify:
9 THAT the foregoing is a true and
10 accurate transcript of my stenographic
11 notes.
12 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have
13 hereunto set my hand this 23rd day of
14 January, 2001.
15
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18 EDWARD LETO
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